Distributed data processing for machine learning

ABSTRACT

Embodiments of the present invention are directed to facilitating distributed data processing for machine learning. In accordance with aspects of the present disclosure, a set of commands in a query to process at an external computing service is identified. For each command in the set of commands, at least one compute unit including at least one operation to perform at the external computing service is identified. Each of the at least one compute unit associated with each command is analyzed to identify an optimized manner in which to execute the set of commands at the external computing service. An indication of the optimized manner in which to execute the set of commands and a corresponding set of data is provided to the external computing service to utilize for executing the set of commands at the external computing service.

BACKGROUND

Modern data centers often include thousands of hosts that operatecollectively to service requests from even larger numbers of remoteclients. During operation, components of these data centers can producesignificant volumes of raw, machine-generated data. In many cases, auser wishes to predict or forecast data from such collected data.Accordingly, machine learned models are frequently generated andutilized to predict or forecast data.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 illustrates a networked computer environment in which anembodiment may be implemented;

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an example data intake and querysystem in which an embodiment may be implemented;

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram that illustrates how indexers process, index,and store data received from forwarders in accordance with the disclosedembodiments;

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram that illustrates how a search head and indexersperform a search query in accordance with the disclosed embodiments;

FIG. 5 illustrates a scenario where a common customer ID is found amonglog data received from three disparate sources in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments;

FIG. 6A illustrates a search screen in accordance with the disclosedembodiments;

FIG. 6B illustrates a data summary dialog that enables a user to selectvarious data sources in accordance with the disclosed embodiments;

FIGS. 7A-7D illustrate a series of user interface screens for an exampledata model-driven report generation interface in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments;

FIG. 8 illustrates an example search query received from a client andexecuted by search peers in accordance with the disclosed embodiments;

FIG. 9A illustrates a key indicators view in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments;

FIG. 9B illustrates an incident review dashboard in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments;

FIG. 9C illustrates a proactive monitoring tree in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments;

FIG. 9D illustrates a user interface screen displaying both log data andperformance data in accordance with the disclosed embodiments;

FIG. 10 illustrates a block diagram of an example cloud-based dataintake and query system in which an embodiment may be implemented;

FIG. 11 illustrates a block diagram of an example data intake and querysystem that performs searches across external data systems in accordancewith the disclosed embodiments;

FIGS. 12-14 illustrate a series of user interface screens for an exampledata model-driven report generation interface in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments;

FIGS. 15-17 illustrate example visualizations generated by a reportingapplication in accordance with the disclosed embodiments;

FIG. 18 depicts a block diagram of an illustrative distributed dataprocessing environment in accordance with various embodiments of thepresent disclosure;

FIG. 19 illustrate an exemplary embodiment of a distributed dataprocessing environment of the present disclosure;

FIGS. 20A-20D illustrate an example data set and corresponding datachunks, in accordance with embodiments described herein;

FIG. 21 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a distributed dataprocessing environment having multiple computing services, according toembodiments described herein;

FIG. 22 is a flow diagram depicting an illustrative method offacilitating distributed data processing, according to embodiments ofthe present invention;

FIG. 23 is a flow diagram depicting an illustrative method of generatingcompute units, according to embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 24 is a flow diagram depicting an illustrative method of generatingexecution plans, according to embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 25 is a flow diagram depicting an illustrative method of performingexternal data processing, in accordance with embodiments of the presentinvention; and

FIG. 26 is a block diagram of an example computing device in whichembodiments of the present disclosure may be employed.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments are described herein according to the following outline:

1.0. General Overview 2.0. Operating Environment

2.1. Host Devices

2.2. Client Devices

2.3. Client Device Applications

2.4. Data Server System

2.5. Data Ingestion

-   -   2.5.1. Input    -   2.5.2. Parsing    -   2.5.3. Indexing

2.6. Query Processing

2.7. Field Extraction

2.8. Example Search Screen

2.9. Data Modeling

2.10. Acceleration Techniques

-   -   2.10.1. Aggregation Technique    -   2.10.2. Keyword Index    -   2.10.3. High Performance Analytics Store    -   2.10.4. Accelerating Report Generation

2.11. Security Features

2.12. Data Center Monitoring

2.13. Cloud-Based System Overview

2.14. Searching Externally Archived Data

-   -   2.14.1. ERP Process Features

3.0. Overview of Distributed Data Processing

3.1. Overview of a Distributed Data Processing Environment

3.2. Illustrative Distributed Data Processing Operations

3.3. Illustrative Hardware System

1.0 General Overview

Modern data centers and other computing environments can compriseanywhere from a few host computer systems to thousands of systemsconfigured to process data, service requests from remote clients, andperform numerous other computational tasks. During operation, variouscomponents within these computing environments often generatesignificant volumes of machine-generated data. For example, machine datais generated by various components in the information technology (IT)environments, such as servers, sensors, routers, mobile devices,Internet of Things (IoT) devices, etc. Machine-generated data caninclude system logs, network packet data, sensor data, applicationprogram data, error logs, stack traces, system performance data, etc. Ingeneral, machine-generated data can also include performance data,diagnostic information, and many other types of data that can beanalyzed to diagnose performance problems, monitor user interactions,and to derive other insights.

A number of tools are available to analyze machine data, that is,machine-generated data. In order to reduce the size of the potentiallyvast amount of machine data that may be generated, many of these toolstypically pre-process the data based on anticipated data-analysis needs.For example, pre-specified data items may be extracted from the machinedata and stored in a database to facilitate efficient retrieval andanalysis of those data items at search time. However, the rest of themachine data typically is not saved and discarded during pre-processing.As storage capacity becomes progressively cheaper and more plentiful,there are fewer incentives to discard these portions of machine data andmany reasons to retain more of the data.

This plentiful storage capacity is presently making it feasible to storemassive quantities of minimally processed machine data for laterretrieval and analysis. In general, storing minimally processed machinedata and performing analysis operations at search time can providegreater flexibility because it enables an analyst to search all of themachine data, instead of searching only a pre-specified set of dataitems. This may enable an analyst to investigate different aspects ofthe machine data that previously were unavailable for analysis.

However, analyzing and searching massive quantities of machine datapresents a number of challenges. For example, a data center, servers, ornetwork appliances may generate many different types and formats ofmachine data (e.g., system logs, network packet data (e.g., wire data,etc.), sensor data, application program data, error logs, stack traces,system performance data, operating system data, virtualization data,etc.) from thousands of different components, which can collectively bevery time-consuming to analyze. In another example, mobile devices maygenerate large amounts of information relating to data accesses,application performance, operating system performance, networkperformance, etc. There can be millions of mobile devices that reportthese types of information.

These challenges can be addressed by using an event-based data intakeand query system, such as the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system developed bySplunk Inc. of San Francisco, Calif. The SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system isthe leading platform for providing real-time operational intelligencethat enables organizations to collect, index, and searchmachine-generated data from various websites, applications, servers,networks, and mobile devices that power their businesses. The SPLUNK®ENTERPRISE system is particularly useful for analyzing data which iscommonly found in system log files, network data, and other data inputsources. Although many of the techniques described herein are explainedwith reference to a data intake and query system similar to the SPLUNK®ENTERPRISE system, these techniques are also applicable to other typesof data systems.

In the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system, machine-generated data are collectedand stored as “events”. An event comprises a portion of themachine-generated data and is associated with a specific point in time.For example, events may be derived from “time series data,” where thetime series data comprises a sequence of data points (e.g., performancemeasurements from a computer system, etc.) that are associated withsuccessive points in time. In general, each event can be associated witha timestamp that is derived from the raw data in the event, determinedthrough interpolation between temporally proximate events having knowntimestamps, or determined based on other configurable rules forassociating timestamps with events, etc.

In some instances, machine data can have a predefined format, where dataitems with specific data formats are stored at predefined locations inthe data. For example, the machine data may include data stored asfields in a database table. In other instances, machine data may nothave a predefined format, that is, the data is not at fixed, predefinedlocations, but the data does have repeatable patterns and is not random.This means that some machine data can comprise various data items ofdifferent data types and that may be stored at different locationswithin the data. For example, when the data source is an operatingsystem log, an event can include one or more lines from the operatingsystem log containing raw data that includes different types ofperformance and diagnostic information associated with a specific pointin time.

Examples of components which may generate machine data from which eventscan be derived include, but are not limited to, web servers, applicationservers, databases, firewalls, routers, operating systems, and softwareapplications that execute on computer systems, mobile devices, sensors,Internet of Things (IoT) devices, etc. The data generated by such datasources can include, for example and without limitation, server logfiles, activity log files, configuration files, messages, network packetdata, performance measurements, sensor measurements, etc.

The SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system uses flexible schema to specify how toextract information from the event data. A flexible schema may bedeveloped and redefined as needed. Note that a flexible schema may beapplied to event data “on the fly,” when it is needed (e.g., at searchtime, index time, ingestion time, etc.). When the schema is not appliedto event data until search time it may be referred to as a “late-bindingschema.”

During operation, the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system starts with raw inputdata (e.g., one or more system logs, streams of network packet data,sensor data, application program data, error logs, stack traces, systemperformance data, etc.). The system divides this raw data into blocks(e.g., buckets of data, each associated with a specific time frame,etc.), and parses the raw data to produce timestamped events. The systemstores the timestamped events in a data store. The system enables usersto run queries against the stored data to, for example, retrieve eventsthat meet criteria specified in a query, such as containing certainkeywords or having specific values in defined fields. As used hereinthroughout, data that is part of an event is referred to as “eventdata”. In this context, the term “field” refers to a location in theevent data containing one or more values for a specific data item. Aswill be described in more detail herein, the fields are defined byextraction rules (e.g., regular expressions) that derive one or morevalues from the portion of raw machine data in each event that has aparticular field specified by an extraction rule. The set of values soproduced are semantically-related (such as IP address), even though theraw machine data in each event may be in different formats (e.g.,semantically-related values may be in different positions in the eventsderived from different sources).

As noted above, the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system utilizes a late-bindingschema to event data while performing queries on events. One aspect of alate-binding schema is applying “extraction rules” to event data toextract values for specific fields during search time. Morespecifically, the extraction rules for a field can include one or moreinstructions that specify how to extract a value for the field from theevent data. An extraction rule can generally include any type ofinstruction for extracting values from data in events. In some cases, anextraction rule comprises a regular expression where a sequence ofcharacters form a search pattern, in which case the rule is referred toas a “regex rule.” The system applies the regex rule to the event datato extract values for associated fields in the event data by searchingthe event data for the sequence of characters defined in the regex rule.

In the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system, a field extractor may be configured toautomatically generate extraction rules for certain field values in theevents when the events are being created, indexed, or stored, orpossibly at a later time. Alternatively, a user may manually defineextraction rules for fields using a variety of techniques. In contrastto a conventional schema for a database system, a late-binding schema isnot defined at data ingestion time. Instead, the late-binding schema canbe developed on an ongoing basis until the time a query is actuallyexecuted. This means that extraction rules for the fields in a query maybe provided in the query itself, or may be located during execution ofthe query. Hence, as a user learns more about the data in the events,the user can continue to refine the late-binding schema by adding newfields, deleting fields, or modifying the field extraction rules for usethe next time the schema is used by the system. Because the SPLUNK®ENTERPRISE system maintains the underlying raw data and useslate-binding schema for searching the raw data, it enables a user tocontinue investigating and learn valuable insights about the raw data.

In some embodiments, a common field name may be used to reference two ormore fields containing equivalent data items, even though the fields maybe associated with different types of events that possibly havedifferent data formats and different extraction rules. By enabling acommon field name to be used to identify equivalent fields fromdifferent types of events generated by disparate data sources, thesystem facilitates use of a “common information model” (CIM) across thedisparate data sources (further discussed with respect to FIG. 5).

2.0. Operating Environment

FIG. 1 illustrates a networked computer system 100 in which anembodiment may be implemented. Those skilled in the art would understandthat FIG. 1 represents one example of a networked computer system andother embodiments may use different arrangements.

The networked computer system 100 comprises one or more computingdevices. These one or more computing devices comprise any combination ofhardware and software configured to implement the various logicalcomponents described herein. For example, the one or more computingdevices may include one or more memories that store instructions forimplementing the various components described herein, one or morehardware processors configured to execute the instructions stored in theone or more memories, and various data repositories in the one or morememories for storing data structures utilized and manipulated by thevarious components.

In an embodiment, one or more client devices 102 are coupled to one ormore host devices 106 and a data intake and query system 108 via one ormore networks 104. Networks 104 broadly represent one or more LANs,WANs, cellular networks (e.g., LTE, HSPA, 3G, and other cellulartechnologies), and/or networks using any of wired, wireless, terrestrialmicrowave, or satellite links, and may include the public Internet.

2.1. Host Devices

In the illustrated embodiment, a system 100 includes one or more hostdevices 106. Host devices 106 may broadly include any number ofcomputers, virtual machine instances, and/or data centers that areconfigured to host or execute one or more instances of host applications114. In general, a host device 106 may be involved, directly orindirectly, in processing requests received from client devices 102.Each host device 106 may comprise, for example, one or more of a networkdevice, a web server, an application server, a database server, etc. Acollection of host devices 106 may be configured to implement anetwork-based service. For example, a provider of a network-basedservice may configure one or more host devices 106 and host applications114 (e.g., one or more web servers, application servers, databaseservers, etc.) to collectively implement the network-based application.

In general, client devices 102 communicate with one or more hostapplications 114 to exchange information. The communication between aclient device 102 and a host application 114 may, for example, be basedon the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or any other network protocol.Content delivered from the host application 114 to a client device 102may include, for example, HTML documents, media content, etc. Thecommunication between a client device 102 and host application 114 mayinclude sending various requests and receiving data packets. Forexample, in general, a client device 102 or application running on aclient device may initiate communication with a host application 114 bymaking a request for a specific resource (e.g., based on an HTTPrequest), and the application server may respond with the requestedcontent stored in one or more response packets.

In the illustrated embodiment, one or more of host applications 114 maygenerate various types of performance data during operation, includingevent logs, network data, sensor data, and other types ofmachine-generated data. For example, a host application 114 comprising aweb server may generate one or more web server logs in which details ofinteractions between the web server and any number of client devices 102is recorded. As another example, a host device 106 comprising a routermay generate one or more router logs that record information related tonetwork traffic managed by the router. As yet another example, a hostapplication 114 comprising a database server may generate one or morelogs that record information related to requests sent from other hostapplications 114 (e.g., web servers or application servers) for datamanaged by the database server.

2.2. Client Devices

Client devices 102 of FIG. 1 represent any computing device capable ofinteracting with one or more host devices 106 via a network 104.Examples of client devices 102 may include, without limitation, smartphones, tablet computers, handheld computers, wearable devices, laptopcomputers, desktop computers, servers, portable media players, gamingdevices, and so forth. In general, a client device 102 can provideaccess to different content, for instance, content provided by one ormore host devices 106, etc. Each client device 102 may comprise one ormore client applications 110, described in more detail in a separatesection hereinafter.

2.3. Client Device Applications

In an embodiment, each client device 102 may host or execute one or moreclient applications 110 that are capable of interacting with one or morehost devices 106 via one or more networks 104. For instance, a clientapplication 110 may be or comprise a web browser that a user may use tonavigate to one or more websites or other resources provided by one ormore host devices 106. As another example, a client application 110 maycomprise a mobile application or “app.” For example, an operator of anetwork-based service hosted by one or more host devices 106 may makeavailable one or more mobile apps that enable users of client devices102 to access various resources of the network-based service. As yetanother example, client applications 110 may include backgroundprocesses that perform various operations without direct interactionfrom a user. A client application 110 may include a “plug-in” or“extension” to another application, such as a web browser plug-in orextension.

In an embodiment, a client application 110 may include a monitoringcomponent 112. At a high level, the monitoring component 112 comprises asoftware component or other logic that facilitates generatingperformance data related to a client device's operating state, includingmonitoring network traffic sent and received from the client device andcollecting other device and/or application-specific information.Monitoring component 112 may be an integrated component of a clientapplication 110, a plug-in, an extension, or any other type of add-oncomponent. Monitoring component 112 may also be a stand-alone process.

In one embodiment, a monitoring component 112 may be created when aclient application 110 is developed, for example, by an applicationdeveloper using a software development kit (SDK). The SDK may includecustom monitoring code that can be incorporated into the codeimplementing a client application 110. When the code is converted to anexecutable application, the custom code implementing the monitoringfunctionality can become part of the application itself.

In some cases, an SDK or other code for implementing the monitoringfunctionality may be offered by a provider of a data intake and querysystem, such as a system 108. In such cases, the provider of the system108 can implement the custom code so that performance data generated bythe monitoring functionality is sent to the system 108 to facilitateanalysis of the performance data by a developer of the clientapplication or other users.

In an embodiment, the custom monitoring code may be incorporated intothe code of a client application 110 in a number of different ways, suchas the insertion of one or more lines in the client application codethat call or otherwise invoke the monitoring component 112. As such, adeveloper of a client application 110 can add one or more lines of codeinto the client application 110 to trigger the monitoring component 112at desired points during execution of the application. Code thattriggers the monitoring component may be referred to as a monitortrigger. For instance, a monitor trigger may be included at or near thebeginning of the executable code of the client application 110 such thatthe monitoring component 112 is initiated or triggered as theapplication is launched, or included at other points in the code thatcorrespond to various actions of the client application, such as sendinga network request or displaying a particular interface.

In an embodiment, the monitoring component 112 may monitor one or moreaspects of network traffic sent and/or received by a client application110. For example, the monitoring component 112 may be configured tomonitor data packets transmitted to and/or from one or more hostapplications 114. Incoming and/or outgoing data packets can be read orexamined to identify network data contained within the packets, forexample, and other aspects of data packets can be analyzed to determinea number of network performance statistics. Monitoring network trafficmay enable information to be gathered particular to the networkperformance associated with a client application 110 or set ofapplications.

In an embodiment, network performance data refers to any type of datathat indicates information about the network and/or network performance.Network performance data may include, for instance, a URL requested, aconnection type (e.g., HTTP, HTTPS, etc.), a connection start time, aconnection end time, an HTTP status code, request length, responselength, request headers, response headers, connection status (e.g.,completion, response time(s), failure, etc.), and the like. Uponobtaining network performance data indicating performance of thenetwork, the network performance data can be transmitted to a dataintake and query system 108 for analysis.

Upon developing a client application 110 that incorporates a monitoringcomponent 112, the client application 110 can be distributed to clientdevices 102. Applications generally can be distributed to client devices102 in any manner, or they can be pre-loaded. In some cases, theapplication may be distributed to a client device 102 via an applicationmarketplace or other application distribution system. For instance, anapplication marketplace or other application distribution system mightdistribute the application to a client device based on a request fromthe client device to download the application.

Examples of functionality that enables monitoring performance of aclient device are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/524,748, entitled “UTILIZING PACKET HEADERS TO MONITOR NETWORKTRAFFIC IN ASSOCIATION WITH A CLIENT DEVICE”, filed on 27 Oct. 2014, andwhich is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for allpurposes.

In an embodiment, the monitoring component 112 may also monitor andcollect performance data related to one or more aspects of theoperational state of a client application 110 and/or client device 102.For example, a monitoring component 112 may be configured to collectdevice performance information by monitoring one or more client deviceoperations, or by making calls to an operating system and/or one or moreother applications executing on a client device 102 for performanceinformation. Device performance information may include, for instance, acurrent wireless signal strength of the device, a current connectiontype and network carrier, current memory performance information, ageographic location of the device, a device orientation, and any otherinformation related to the operational state of the client device.

In an embodiment, the monitoring component 112 may also monitor andcollect other device profile information including, for example, a typeof client device, a manufacturer and model of the device, versions ofvarious software applications installed on the device, and so forth.

In general, a monitoring component 112 may be configured to generateperformance data in response to a monitor trigger in the code of aclient application 110 or other triggering application event, asdescribed above, and to store the performance data in one or more datarecords. Each data record, for example, may include a collection offield-value pairs, each field-value pair storing a particular item ofperformance data in association with a field for the item. For example,a data record generated by a monitoring component 112 may include a“networkLatency” field (not shown in the Figure) in which a value isstored. This field indicates a network latency measurement associatedwith one or more network requests. The data record may include a “state”field to store a value indicating a state of a network connection, andso forth for any number of aspects of collected performance data.

2.4. Data Server System

FIG. 2 depicts a block diagram of an exemplary data intake and querysystem 108, similar to the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system. System 108includes one or more forwarders 204 that receive data from a variety ofinput data sources 202, and one or more indexers 206 that process andstore the data in one or more data stores 208. These forwarders andindexers can comprise separate computer systems, or may alternativelycomprise separate processes executing on one or more computer systems.

Each data source 202 broadly represents a distinct source of data thatcan be consumed by a system 108. Examples of a data source 202 include,without limitation, data files, directories of files, data sent over anetwork, event logs, registries, etc.

During operation, the forwarders 204 identify which indexers 206 receivedata collected from a data source 202 and forward the data to theappropriate indexers. Forwarders 204 can also perform operations on thedata before forwarding, including removing extraneous data, detectingtimestamps in the data, parsing data, indexing data, routing data basedon criteria relating to the data being routed, and/or performing otherdata transformations.

In an embodiment, a forwarder 204 may comprise a service accessible toclient devices 102 and host devices 106 via a network 104. For example,one type of forwarder 204 may be capable of consuming vast amounts ofreal-time data from a potentially large number of client devices 102and/or host devices 106. The forwarder 204 may, for example, comprise acomputing device which implements multiple data pipelines or “queues” tohandle forwarding of network data to indexers 206. A forwarder 204 mayalso perform many of the functions that are performed by an indexer. Forexample, a forwarder 204 may perform keyword extractions on raw data orparse raw data to create events. A forwarder 204 may generate timestamps for events. Additionally or alternatively, a forwarder 204 mayperform routing of events to indexers. Data store 208 may contain eventsderived from machine data from a variety of sources all pertaining tothe same component in an IT environment, and this data may be producedby the machine in question or by other components in the IT environment.

2.5. Data Ingestion

FIG. 3 depicts a flow chart illustrating an example data flow performedby Data Intake and Query system 108, in accordance with the disclosedembodiments. The data flow illustrated in FIG. 3 is provided forillustrative purposes only; those skilled in the art would understandthat one or more of the steps of the processes illustrated in FIG. 3 maybe removed or the ordering of the steps may be changed. Furthermore, forthe purposes of illustrating a clear example, one or more particularsystem components are described in the context of performing variousoperations during each of the data flow stages. For example, a forwarderis described as receiving and processing data during an input phase; anindexer is described as parsing and indexing data during parsing andindexing phases; and a search head is described as performing a searchquery during a search phase. However, other system arrangements anddistributions of the processing steps across system components may beused.

2.5.1. Input

At block 302, a forwarder receives data from an input source, such as adata source 202 shown in FIG. 2. A forwarder initially may receive thedata as a raw data stream generated by the input source. For example, aforwarder may receive a data stream from a log file generated by anapplication server, from a stream of network data from a network device,or from any other source of data. In one embodiment, a forwarderreceives the raw data and may segment the data stream into “blocks”, or“buckets,” possibly of a uniform data size, to facilitate subsequentprocessing steps.

At block 304, a forwarder or other system component annotates each blockgenerated from the raw data with one or more metadata fields. Thesemetadata fields may, for example, provide information related to thedata block as a whole and may apply to each event that is subsequentlyderived from the data in the data block. For example, the metadatafields may include separate fields specifying each of a host, a source,and a source type related to the data block. A host field may contain avalue identifying a host name or IP address of a device that generatedthe data. A source field may contain a value identifying a source of thedata, such as a pathname of a file or a protocol and port related toreceived network data. A source type field may contain a valuespecifying a particular source type label for the data. Additionalmetadata fields may also be included during the input phase, such as acharacter encoding of the data, if known, and possibly other values thatprovide information relevant to later processing steps. In anembodiment, a forwarder forwards the annotated data blocks to anothersystem component (typically an indexer) for further processing.

The SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system allows forwarding of data from one SPLUNK®ENTERPRISE instance to another, or even to a third-party system. SPLUNK®ENTERPRISE system can employ different types of forwarders in aconfiguration.

In an embodiment, a forwarder may contain the essential componentsneeded to forward data. It can gather data from a variety of inputs andforward the data to a SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE server for indexing andsearching. It also can tag metadata (e.g., source, source type, host,etc.).

Additionally or optionally, in an embodiment, a forwarder has thecapabilities of the aforementioned forwarder as well as additionalcapabilities. The forwarder can parse data before forwarding the data(e.g., associate a time stamp with a portion of data and create anevent, etc.) and can route data based on criteria such as source or typeof event. It can also index data locally while forwarding the data toanother indexer.

2.5.2. Parsing

At block 306, an indexer receives data blocks from a forwarder andparses the data to organize the data into events. In an embodiment, toorganize the data into events, an indexer may determine a source typeassociated with each data block (e.g., by extracting a source type labelfrom the metadata fields associated with the data block, etc.) and referto a source type configuration corresponding to the identified sourcetype. The source type definition may include one or more properties thatindicate to the indexer to automatically determine the boundaries ofevents within the data. In general, these properties may include regularexpression-based rules or delimiter rules where, for example, eventboundaries may be indicated by predefined characters or characterstrings. These predefined characters may include punctuation marks orother special characters including, for example, carriage returns, tabs,spaces, line breaks, etc. If a source type for the data is unknown tothe indexer, an indexer may infer a source type for the data byexamining the structure of the data. Then, it can apply an inferredsource type definition to the data to create the events.

At block 308, the indexer determines a timestamp for each event. Similarto the process for creating events, an indexer may again refer to asource type definition associated with the data to locate one or moreproperties that indicate instructions for determining a timestamp foreach event. The properties may, for example, instruct an indexer toextract a time value from a portion of data in the event, to interpolatetime values based on timestamps associated with temporally proximateevents, to create a timestamp based on a time the event data wasreceived or generated, to use the timestamp of a previous event, or useany other rules for determining timestamps.

At block 310, the indexer associates with each event one or moremetadata fields including a field containing the timestamp (in someembodiments, a timestamp may be included in the metadata fields)determined for the event. These metadata fields may include a number of“default fields” that are associated with all events, and may alsoinclude one more custom fields as defined by a user. Similar to themetadata fields associated with the data blocks at block 304, thedefault metadata fields associated with each event may include a host,source, and source type field including or in addition to a fieldstoring the timestamp.

At block 312, an indexer may optionally apply one or moretransformations to data included in the events created at block 306. Forexample, such transformations can include removing a portion of an event(e.g., a portion used to define event boundaries, extraneous charactersfrom the event, other extraneous text, etc.), masking a portion of anevent (e.g., masking a credit card number), removing redundant portionsof an event, etc. The transformations applied to event data may, forexample, be specified in one or more configuration files and referencedby one or more source type definitions.

2.5.3. Indexing

At blocks 314 and 316, an indexer can optionally generate a keywordindex to facilitate fast keyword searching for event data. To build akeyword index, at block 314, the indexer identifies a set of keywords ineach event. At block 316, the indexer includes the identified keywordsin an index, which associates each stored keyword with referencepointers to events containing that keyword (or to locations withinevents where that keyword is located, other location identifiers, etc.).When an indexer subsequently receives a keyword-based query, the indexercan access the keyword index to quickly identify events containing thekeyword.

In some embodiments, the keyword index may include entries forname-value pairs found in events, where a name-value pair can include apair of keywords connected by a symbol, such as an equals sign or colon.This way, events containing these name-value pairs can be quicklylocated. In some embodiments, fields can automatically be generated forsome or all of the name-value pairs at the time of indexing. Forexample, if the string “dest=10.0.1.2” is found in an event, a fieldnamed “dest” may be created for the event, and assigned a value of“10.0.1.2”.

At block 318, the indexer stores the events with an associated timestampin a data store 208. Timestamps enable a user to search for events basedon a time range. In one embodiment, the stored events are organized into“buckets,” where each bucket stores events associated with a specifictime range based on the timestamps associated with each event. This maynot only improve time-based searching, but also allows for events withrecent timestamps, which may have a higher likelihood of being accessed,to be stored in a faster memory to facilitate faster retrieval. Forexample, buckets containing the most recent events can be stored inflash memory rather than on a hard disk.

Each indexer 206 may be responsible for storing and searching a subsetof the events contained in a corresponding data store 208. Bydistributing events among the indexers and data stores, the indexers cananalyze events for a query in parallel. For example, using map-reducetechniques, each indexer returns partial responses for a subset ofevents to a search head that combines the results to produce an answerfor the query. By storing events in buckets for specific time ranges, anindexer may further optimize data retrieval process by searching bucketscorresponding to time ranges that are relevant to a query.

Moreover, events and buckets can also be replicated across differentindexers and data stores to facilitate high availability and disasterrecovery as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/266,812,entitled “SITE-BASED SEARCH AFFINITY”, filed on 30 Apr. 2014, and inU.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/266,817, entitled “MULTI-SITECLUSTERING”, also filed on 30 Apr. 2014, each of which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes.

2.6. Query Processing

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram that illustrates an exemplary process that asearch head and one or more indexers may perform during a search query.At block 402, a search head receives a search query from a client. Atblock 404, the search head analyzes the search query to determine whatportion(s) of the query can be delegated to indexers and what portionsof the query can be executed locally by the search head. At block 406,the search head distributes the determined portions of the query to theappropriate indexers. In an embodiment, a search head cluster may takethe place of an independent search head where each search head in thesearch head cluster coordinates with peer search heads in the searchhead cluster to schedule jobs, replicate search results, updateconfigurations, fulfill search requests, etc. In an embodiment, thesearch head (or each search head) communicates with a master node (alsoknown as a cluster master, not shown in Fig.) that provides the searchhead with a list of indexers to which the search head can distribute thedetermined portions of the query. The master node maintains a list ofactive indexers and can also designate which indexers may haveresponsibility for responding to queries over certain sets of events. Asearch head may communicate with the master node before the search headdistributes queries to indexers to discover the addresses of activeindexers.

At block 408, the indexers to which the query was distributed, searchdata stores associated with them for events that are responsive to thequery. To determine which events are responsive to the query, theindexer searches for events that match the criteria specified in thequery. These criteria can include matching keywords or specific valuesfor certain fields. The searching operations at block 408 may use thelate-binding schema to extract values for specified fields from eventsat the time the query is processed. In an embodiment, one or more rulesfor extracting field values may be specified as part of a source typedefinition. The indexers may then either send the relevant events backto the search head, or use the events to determine a partial result, andsend the partial result back to the search head.

At block 410, the search head combines the partial results and/or eventsreceived from the indexers to produce a final result for the query. Thisfinal result may comprise different types of data depending on what thequery requested. For example, the results can include a listing ofmatching events returned by the query, or some type of visualization ofthe data from the returned events. In another example, the final resultcan include one or more calculated values derived from the matchingevents.

The results generated by the system 108 can be returned to a clientusing different techniques. For example, one technique streams resultsor relevant events back to a client in real-time as they are identified.Another technique waits to report the results to the client until acomplete set of results (which may include a set of relevant events or aresult based on relevant events) is ready to return to the client. Yetanother technique streams interim results or relevant events back to theclient in real-time until a complete set of results is ready, and thenreturns the complete set of results to the client. In another technique,certain results are stored as “search jobs” and the client may retrievethe results by referring the search jobs.

The search head can also perform various operations to make the searchmore efficient. For example, before the search head begins execution ofa query, the search head can determine a time range for the query and aset of common keywords that all matching events include. The search headmay then use these parameters to query the indexers to obtain a supersetof the eventual results. Then, during a filtering stage, the search headcan perform field-extraction operations on the superset to produce areduced set of search results. This speeds up queries that are performedon a periodic basis.

2.7. Field Extraction

The search head 210 allows users to search and visualize event dataextracted from raw machine data received from homogenous data sources.It also allows users to search and visualize event data extracted fromraw machine data received from heterogeneous data sources. The searchhead 210 includes various mechanisms, which may additionally reside inan indexer 206, for processing a query. Splunk Processing Language(SPL), used in conjunction with the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system, can beutilized to make a query. SPL is a pipelined search language in which aset of inputs is operated on by a first command in a command line, andthen a subsequent command following the pipe symbol “|” operates on theresults produced by the first command, and so on for additionalcommands. Other query languages, such as the Structured Query Language(“SQL”), can be used to create a query.

In response to receiving the search query, search head 210 usesextraction rules to extract values for the fields associated with afield or fields in the event data being searched. The search head 210obtains extraction rules that specify how to extract a value for certainfields from an event. Extraction rules can comprise regex rules thatspecify how to extract values for the relevant fields. In addition tospecifying how to extract field values, the extraction rules may alsoinclude instructions for deriving a field value by performing a functionon a character string or value retrieved by the extraction rule. Forexample, a transformation rule may truncate a character string, orconvert the character string into a different data format. In somecases, the query itself can specify one or more extraction rules.

The search head 210 can apply the extraction rules to event data that itreceives from indexers 206. Indexers 206 may apply the extraction rulesto events in an associated data store 208. Extraction rules can beapplied to all the events in a data store, or to a subset of the eventsthat have been filtered based on some criteria (e.g., event time stampvalues, etc.). Extraction rules can be used to extract one or morevalues for a field from events by parsing the event data and examiningthe event data for one or more patterns of characters, numbers,delimiters, etc., that indicate where the field begins and, optionally,ends.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of raw machine data received fromdisparate data sources. In this example, a user submits an order formerchandise using a vendor's shopping application program 501 running onthe user's system. In this example, the order was not delivered to thevendor's server due to a resource exception at the destination serverthat is detected by the middleware code 502. The user then sends amessage to the customer support 503 to complain about the order failingto complete. The three systems 501, 502, and 503 are disparate systemsthat do not have a common logging format. The order application 501sends log data 504 to the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system in one format, themiddleware code 502 sends error log data 505 in a second format, and thesupport server 503 sends log data 506 in a third format.

Using the log data received at one or more indexers 206 from the threesystems the vendor can uniquely obtain an insight into user activity,user experience, and system behavior. The search head 210 allows thevendor's administrator to search the log data from the three systemsthat one or more indexers 206 are responsible for searching, therebyobtaining correlated information, such as the order number andcorresponding customer ID number of the person placing the order. Thesystem also allows the administrator to see a visualization of relatedevents via a user interface. The administrator can query the search head210 for customer ID field value matches across the log data from thethree systems that are stored at the one or more indexers 206. Thecustomer ID field value exists in the data gathered from the threesystems, but the customer ID field value may be located in differentareas of the data given differences in the architecture of thesystems—there is a semantic relationship between the customer ID fieldvalues generated by the three systems. The search head 210 requestsevent data from the one or more indexers 206 to gather relevant eventdata from the three systems. It then applies extraction rules to theevent data in order to extract field values that it can correlate. Thesearch head may apply a different extraction rule to each set of eventsfrom each system when the event data format differs among systems. Inthis example, the user interface can display to the administrator theevent data corresponding to the common customer ID field values 507,508, and 509, thereby providing the administrator with insight into acustomer's experience.

Note that query results can be returned to a client, a search head, orany other system component for further processing. In general, queryresults may include a set of one or more events, a set of one or morevalues obtained from the events, a subset of the values, statisticscalculated based on the values, a report containing the values, or avisualization, such as a graph or chart, generated from the values.

2.8. Example Search Screen

FIG. 6A illustrates an example search screen 600 in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments. Search screen 600 includes a search bar 602 thataccepts user input in the form of a search string. It also includes atime range picker 612 that enables the user to specify a time range forthe search. For “historical searches” the user can select a specifictime range, or alternatively a relative time range, such as “today,”“yesterday” or “last week.” For “real-time searches,” the user canselect the size of a preceding time window to search for real-timeevents. Search screen 600 also initially displays a “data summary”dialog as is illustrated in FIG. 6B that enables the user to selectdifferent sources for the event data, such as by selecting specifichosts and log files.

After the search is executed, the search screen 600 in FIG. 6A candisplay the results through search results tabs 604, wherein searchresults tabs 604 includes: an “events tab” that displays variousinformation about events returned by the search; a “statistics tab” thatdisplays statistics about the search results; and a “visualization tab”that displays various visualizations of the search results. The eventstab illustrated in FIG. 6A displays a timeline graph 605 thatgraphically illustrates the number of events that occurred in one-hourintervals over the selected time range. It also displays an events list608 that enables a user to view the raw data in each of the returnedevents. It additionally displays a fields sidebar 606 that includesstatistics about occurrences of specific fields in the returned events,including “selected fields” that are pre-selected by the user, and“interesting fields” that are automatically selected by the system basedon pre-specified criteria.

2.9. Data Models

A data model is a hierarchically structured search-time mapping ofsemantic knowledge about one or more datasets. It encodes the domainknowledge necessary to build a variety of specialized searches of thosedatasets. Those searches, in turn, can be used to generate reports.

A data model is composed of one or more “objects” (or “data modelobjects”) that define or otherwise correspond to a specific set of data.

Objects in data models can be arranged hierarchically in parent/childrelationships. Each child object represents a subset of the datasetcovered by its parent object. The top-level objects in data models arecollectively referred to as “root objects.”

Child objects have inheritance. Data model objects are defined bycharacteristics that mostly break down into constraints and attributes.Child objects inherit constraints and attributes from their parentobjects and have additional constraints and attributes of their own.Child objects provide a way of filtering events from parent objects.Because a child object always provides an additional constraint inaddition to the constraints it has inherited from its parent object, thedataset it represents is always a subset of the dataset that its parentrepresents.

For example, a first data model object may define a broad set of datapertaining to e-mail activity generally, and another data model objectmay define specific datasets within the broad dataset, such as a subsetof the e-mail data pertaining specifically to e-mails sent. Examples ofdata models can include electronic mail, authentication, databases,intrusion detection, malware, application state, alerts, computeinventory, network sessions, network traffic, performance, audits,updates, vulnerabilities, etc. Data models and their objects can bedesigned by knowledge managers in an organization, and they can enabledownstream users to quickly focus on a specific set of data. Forexample, a user can simply select an “e-mail activity” data model objectto access a dataset relating to e-mails generally (e.g., sent orreceived), or select an “e-mails sent” data model object (or datasub-model object) to access a dataset relating to e-mails sent.

A data model object may be defined by (1) a set of search constraints,and (2) a set of fields. Thus, a data model object can be used toquickly search data to identify a set of events and to identify a set offields to be associated with the set of events. For example, an “e-mailssent” data model object may specify a search for events relating toe-mails that have been sent, and specify a set of fields that areassociated with the events. Thus, a user can retrieve and use the“e-mails sent” data model object to quickly search source data forevents relating to sent e-mails, and may be provided with a listing ofthe set of fields relevant to the events in a user interface screen.

A child of the parent data model may be defined by a search (typically anarrower search) that produces a subset of the events that would beproduced by the parent data model's search. The child's set of fieldscan include a subset of the set of fields of the parent data modeland/or additional fields. Data model objects that reference the subsetscan be arranged in a hierarchical manner, so that child subsets ofevents are proper subsets of their parents. A user iteratively applies amodel development tool (not shown in Fig.) to prepare a query thatdefines a subset of events and assigns an object name to that subset. Achild subset is created by further limiting a query that generated aparent subset. A late-binding schema of field extraction rules isassociated with each object or subset in the data model.

Data definitions in associated schemas can be taken from the commoninformation model (CIM) or can be devised for a particular schema andoptionally added to the CIM. Child objects inherit fields from parentsand can include fields not present in parents. A model developer canselect fewer extraction rules than are available for the sourcesreturned by the query that defines events belonging to a model.Selecting a limited set of extraction rules can be a tool forsimplifying and focusing the data model, while allowing a userflexibility to explore the data subset. Development of a data model isfurther explained in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,788,525 and 8,788,526, bothentitled “DATA MODEL FOR MACHINE DATA FOR SEMANTIC SEARCH”, both issuedon 22 Jul. 2014, U.S. Pat. No. 8,983,994, entitled “GENERATION OF A DATAMODEL FOR SEARCHING MACHINE DATA”, issued on 17 March, 2015, U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/611,232, entitled “GENERATION OF A DATA MODELAPPLIED TO QUERIES”, filed on 31 Jan. 2015, and U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 14/815,884, entitled “GENERATION OF A DATA MODEL APPLIED TOOBJECT QUERIES”, filed on 31 Jul. 2015, each of which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes. See, also,Knowledge Manager Manual, Build a Data Model, Splunk Enterprise 6.1.3pp. 150-204 (Aug. 25, 2014).

A data model can also include reports. One or more report formats can beassociated with a particular data model and be made available to runagainst the data model. A user can use child objects to design reportswith object datasets that already have extraneous data pre-filtered out.In an embodiment, the data intake and query system 108 provides the userwith the ability to produce reports (e.g., a table, chart,visualization, etc.) without having to enter SPL, SQL, or other querylanguage terms into a search screen. Data models are used as the basisfor the search feature.

Data models may be selected in a report generation interface. The reportgenerator supports drag-and-drop organization of fields to be summarizedin a report. When a model is selected, the fields with availableextraction rules are made available for use in the report. The user mayrefine and/or filter search results to produce more precise reports. Theuser may select some fields for organizing the report and select otherfields for providing detail according to the report organization. Forexample, “region” and “salesperson” are fields used for organizing thereport and sales data can be summarized (subtotaled and totaled) withinthis organization. The report generator allows the user to specify oneor more fields within events and apply statistical analysis on valuesextracted from the specified one or more fields. The report generatormay aggregate search results across sets of events and generatestatistics based on aggregated search results. Building reports usingthe report generation interface is further explained in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/503,335, entitled “GENERATING REPORTS FROMUNSTRUCTURED DATA”, filed on 30 Sep. 2014, and which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes, and in PivotManual, Splunk Enterprise 6.1.3 (Aug. 4, 2014). Data visualizations alsocan be generated in a variety of formats, by reference to the datamodel. Reports, data visualizations, and data model objects can be savedand associated with the data model for future use. The data model objectmay be used to perform searches of other data.

FIGS. 12, 13, and 7A-7D illustrate a series of user interface screenswhere a user may select report generation options using data models. Thereport generation process may be driven by a predefined data modelobject, such as a data model object defined and/or saved via a reportingapplication or a data model object obtained from another source. A usercan load a saved data model object using a report editor. For example,the initial search query and fields used to drive the report editor maybe obtained from a data model object. The data model object that is usedto drive a report generation process may define a search and a set offields. Upon loading of the data model object, the report generationprocess may enable a user to use the fields (e.g., the fields defined bythe data model object) to define criteria for a report (e.g., filters,split rows/columns, aggregates, etc.) and the search may be used toidentify events (e.g., to identify events responsive to the search) usedto generate the report. That is, for example, if a data model object isselected to drive a report editor, the graphical user interface of thereport editor may enable a user to define reporting criteria for thereport using the fields associated with the selected data model object,and the events used to generate the report may be constrained to theevents that match, or otherwise satisfy, the search constraints of theselected data model object.

The selection of a data model object for use in driving a reportgeneration may be facilitated by a data model object selectioninterface. FIG. 12 illustrates an example interactive data modelselection graphical user interface 1200 of a report editor that displaysa listing of available data models 1201. The user may select one of thedata models 1202.

FIG. 13 illustrates an example data model object selection graphicaluser interface 1300 that displays available data objects 1301 for theselected data object model 1202. The user may select one of thedisplayed data model objects 1302 for use in driving the reportgeneration process.

Once a data model object is selected by the user, a user interfacescreen 700 shown in FIG. 7A may display an interactive listing ofautomatic field identification options 701 based on the selected datamodel object. For example, a user may select one of the threeillustrated options (e.g., the “All Fields” option 702, the “SelectedFields” option 703, or the “Coverage” option (e.g., fields with at leasta specified % of coverage) 704). If the user selects the “All Fields”option 702, all of the fields identified from the events that werereturned in response to an initial search query may be selected. Thatis, for example, all of the fields of the identified data model objectfields may be selected. If the user selects the “Selected Fields” option703, only the fields from the fields of the identified data model objectfields that are selected by the user may be used. If the user selectsthe “Coverage” option 704, only the fields of the identified data modelobject fields meeting a specified coverage criteria may be selected. Apercent coverage may refer to the percentage of events returned by theinitial search query that a given field appears in. Thus, for example,if an object dataset includes 10,000 events returned in response to aninitial search query, and the “avg_age” field appears in 854 of those10,000 events, then the “avg_age” field would have a coverage of 8.54%for that object dataset. If, for example, the user selects the“Coverage” option and specifies a coverage value of 2%, only fieldshaving a coverage value equal to or greater than 2% may be selected. Thenumber of fields corresponding to each selectable option may bedisplayed in association with each option. For example, “97” displayednext to the “All Fields” option 702 indicates that 97 fields will beselected if the “All Fields” option is selected. The “3” displayed nextto the “Selected Fields” option 703 indicates that 3 of the 97 fieldswill be selected if the “Selected Fields” option is selected. The “49”displayed next to the “Coverage” option 704 indicates that 49 of the 97fields (e.g., the 49 fields having a coverage of 2% or greater) will beselected if the “Coverage” option is selected. The number of fieldscorresponding to the “Coverage” option may be dynamically updated basedon the specified percent of coverage.

FIG. 7B illustrates an example graphical user interface screen (alsocalled the pivot interface) 705 displaying the reporting application's“Report Editor” page. The screen may display interactive elements fordefining various elements of a report. For example, the page includes a“Filters” element 706, a “Split Rows” element 707, a “Split Columns”element 708, and a “Column Values” element 709. The page may include alist of search results 711. In this example, the Split Rows element 707is expanded, revealing a listing of fields 710 that can be used todefine additional criteria (e.g., reporting criteria). The listing offields 710 may correspond to the selected fields (attributes). That is,the listing of fields 710 may list only the fields previously selected,either automatically and/or manually by a user. FIG. 7C illustrates aformatting dialogue 712 that may be displayed upon selecting a fieldfrom the listing of fields 710. The dialogue can be used to format thedisplay of the results of the selection (e.g., label the column to bedisplayed as “component”).

FIG. 7D illustrates an example graphical user interface screen 705including a table of results 713 based on the selected criteriaincluding splitting the rows by the “component” field. A column 714having an associated count for each component listed in the table may bedisplayed that indicates an aggregate count of the number of times thatthe particular field-value pair (e.g., the value in a row) occurs in theset of events responsive to the initial search query.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example graphical user interface screen 1400 thatallows the user to filter search results and to perform statisticalanalysis on values extracted from specific fields in the set of events.In this example, the top ten product names ranked by price are selectedas a filter 1401 that causes the display of the ten most popularproducts sorted by price. Each row is displayed by product name andprice 1402. This results in each product displayed in a column labeled“product name” along with an associated price in a column labeled“price” 1406. Statistical analysis of other fields in the eventsassociated with the ten most popular products have been specified ascolumn values 1403. A count of the number of successful purchases foreach product is displayed in column 1404. These statistics may beproduced by filtering the search results by the product name, findingall occurrences of a successful purchase in a field within the eventsand generating a total of the number of occurrences. A sum of the totalsales is displayed in column 1405, which is a result of themultiplication of the price and the number of successful purchases foreach product.

The reporting application allows the user to create graphicalvisualizations of the statistics generated for a report. For example,FIG. 15 illustrates an example graphical user interface 1500 thatdisplays a set of components and associated statistics 1501. Thereporting application allows the user to select a visualization of thestatistics in a graph (e.g., bar chart, scatter plot, area chart, linechart, pie chart, radial gauge, marker gauge, filler gauge, etc.). FIG.16 illustrates an example of a bar chart visualization 1600 of an aspectof the statistical data 1501. FIG. 17 illustrates a scatter plotvisualization 1700 of an aspect of the statistical data 1501.

2.10. Acceleration Technique

The above-described system provides significant flexibility by enablinga user to analyze massive quantities of minimally processed data “on thefly” at search time instead of storing pre-specified portions of thedata in a database at ingestion time. This flexibility enables a user tosee valuable insights, correlate data, and perform subsequent queries toexamine interesting aspects of the data that may not have been apparentat ingestion time.

However, performing extraction and analysis operations at search timecan involve a large amount of data and require a large number ofcomputational operations, which can cause delays in processing thequeries. Advantageously, SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system employs a number ofunique acceleration techniques that have been developed to speed upanalysis operations performed at search time. These techniques include:(1) performing search operations in parallel across multiple indexers;(2) using a keyword index; (3) using a high performance analytics store;and (4) accelerating the process of generating reports. These noveltechniques are described in more detail below.

2.10.1. Aggregation Technique

To facilitate faster query processing, a query can be structured suchthat multiple indexers perform the query in parallel, while aggregationof search results from the multiple indexers is performed locally at thesearch head. For example, FIG. 8 illustrates how a search query 802received from a client at a search head 210 can split into two phases,including: (1) subtasks 804 (e.g., data retrieval or simple filtering)that may be performed in parallel by indexers 206 for execution, and (2)a search results aggregation operation 806 to be executed by the searchhead when the results are ultimately collected from the indexers.

During operation, upon receiving search query 802, a search head 210determines that a portion of the operations involved with the searchquery may be performed locally by the search head. The search headmodifies search query 802 by substituting “stats” (create aggregatestatistics over results sets received from the indexers at the searchhead) with “prestats” (create statistics by the indexer from localresults set) to produce search query 804, and then distributes searchquery 804 to distributed indexers, which are also referred to as “searchpeers.” Note that search queries may generally specify search criteriaor operations to be performed on events that meet the search criteria.Search queries may also specify field names, as well as search criteriafor the values in the fields or operations to be performed on the valuesin the fields. Moreover, the search head may distribute the full searchquery to the search peers as illustrated in FIG. 4, or may alternativelydistribute a modified version (e.g., a more restricted version) of thesearch query to the search peers. In this example, the indexers areresponsible for producing the results and sending them to the searchhead. After the indexers return the results to the search head, thesearch head aggregates the received results 806 to form a single searchresult set. By executing the query in this manner, the systemeffectively distributes the computational operations across the indexerswhile minimizing data transfers.

2.10.2. Keyword Index

As described above with reference to the flow charts in FIG. 3 and FIG.4, data intake and query system 108 can construct and maintain one ormore keyword indices to quickly identify events containing specifickeywords. This technique can greatly speed up the processing of queriesinvolving specific keywords. As mentioned above, to build a keywordindex, an indexer first identifies a set of keywords. Then, the indexerincludes the identified keywords in an index, which associates eachstored keyword with references to events containing that keyword, or tolocations within events where that keyword is located. When an indexersubsequently receives a keyword-based query, the indexer can access thekeyword index to quickly identify events containing the keyword.

2.10.3. High Performance Analytics Store

To speed up certain types of queries, some embodiments of system 108create a high performance analytics store, which is referred to as a“summarization table,” that contains entries for specific field-valuepairs. Each of these entries keeps track of instances of a specificvalue in a specific field in the event data and includes references toevents containing the specific value in the specific field. For example,an example entry in a summarization table can keep track of occurrencesof the value “94107” in a “ZIP code” field of a set of events and theentry includes references to all of the events that contain the value“94107” in the ZIP code field. This optimization technique enables thesystem to quickly process queries that seek to determine how many eventshave a particular value for a particular field. To this end, the systemcan examine the entry in the summarization table to count instances ofthe specific value in the field without having to go through theindividual events or perform data extractions at search time. Also, ifthe system needs to process all events that have a specific field-valuecombination, the system can use the references in the summarizationtable entry to directly access the events to extract further informationwithout having to search all of the events to find the specificfield-value combination at search time.

In some embodiments, the system maintains a separate summarization tablefor each of the above-described time-specific buckets that stores eventsfor a specific time range. A bucket-specific summarization tableincludes entries for specific field-value combinations that occur inevents in the specific bucket. Alternatively, the system can maintain aseparate summarization table for each indexer. The indexer-specificsummarization table includes entries for the events in a data store thatare managed by the specific indexer. Indexer-specific summarizationtables may also be bucket-specific.

The summarization table can be populated by running a periodic querythat scans a set of events to find instances of a specific field-valuecombination, or alternatively instances of all field-value combinationsfor a specific field. A periodic query can be initiated by a user, orcan be scheduled to occur automatically at specific time intervals. Aperiodic query can also be automatically launched in response to a querythat asks for a specific field-value combination.

In some cases, when the summarization tables may not cover all of theevents that are relevant to a query, the system can use thesummarization tables to obtain partial results for the events that arecovered by summarization tables, but may also have to search throughother events that are not covered by the summarization tables to produceadditional results. These additional results can then be combined withthe partial results to produce a final set of results for the query. Thesummarization table and associated techniques are described in moredetail in U.S. Pat. No. 8,682,925, entitled “DISTRIBUTED HIGHPERFORMANCE ANALYTICS STORE”, issued on 25 Mar. 2014, U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/170,159, entitled “SUPPLEMENTING A HIGHPERFORMANCE ANALYTICS STORE WITH EVALUATION OF INDIVIDUAL EVENTS TORESPOND TO AN EVENT QUERY”, filed on 31 Jan. 2014, and U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/815,973, entitled “STORAGE MEDIUM AND CONTROLDEVICE”, filed on 21 Feb. 2014, each of which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety.

2.10.4. Accelerating Report Generation

In some embodiments, a data server system such as the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISEsystem can accelerate the process of periodically generating updatedreports based on query results. To accelerate this process, asummarization engine automatically examines the query to determinewhether generation of updated reports can be accelerated by creatingintermediate summaries. If reports can be accelerated, the summarizationengine periodically generates a summary covering data obtained during alatest non-overlapping time period. For example, where the query seeksevents meeting a specified criteria, a summary for the time periodincludes only events within the time period that meet the specifiedcriteria. Similarly, if the query seeks statistics calculated from theevents, such as the number of events that match the specified criteria,then the summary for the time period includes the number of events inthe period that match the specified criteria.

In addition to the creation of the summaries, the summarization engineschedules the periodic updating of the report associated with the query.During each scheduled report update, the query engine determines whetherintermediate summaries have been generated covering portions of the timeperiod covered by the report update. If so, then the report is generatedbased on the information contained in the summaries. Also, if additionalevent data has been received and has not yet been summarized, and isrequired to generate the complete report, the query can be run on thisadditional event data. Then, the results returned by this query on theadditional event data, along with the partial results obtained from theintermediate summaries, can be combined to generate the updated report.This process is repeated each time the report is updated. Alternatively,if the system stores events in buckets covering specific time ranges,then the summaries can be generated on a bucket-by-bucket basis. Notethat producing intermediate summaries can save the work involved inre-running the query for previous time periods, so advantageously onlythe newer event data needs to be processed while generating an updatedreport. These report acceleration techniques are described in moredetail in U.S. Pat. No. 8,589,403, entitled “COMPRESSED JOURNALING INEVENT TRACKING FILES FOR METADATA RECOVERY AND REPLICATION”, issued on19 Nov. 2013, U.S. Pat. No. 8,412,696, entitled “REAL TIME SEARCHING ANDREPORTING”, issued on 2 Apr. 2011, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,589,375 and8,589,432, both also entitled “REAL TIME SEARCHING AND REPORTING”, bothissued on 19 Nov. 2013, each of which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety.

2.11. Security Features

The SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE platform provides various schemas, dashboards andvisualizations that simplify developers' task to create applicationswith additional capabilities. One such application is the SPLUNK® APPFOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY, which performs monitoring and alertingoperations and includes analytics to facilitate identifying both knownand unknown security threats based on large volumes of data stored bythe SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system. SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITYprovides the security practitioner with visibility intosecurity-relevant threats found in the enterprise infrastructure bycapturing, monitoring, and reporting on data from enterprise securitydevices, systems, and applications. Through the use of SPLUNK®ENTERPRISE searching and reporting capabilities, SPLUNK® APP FORENTERPRISE SECURITY provides a top-down and bottom-up view of anorganization's security posture.

The SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY leverages SPLUNK® ENTERPRISEsearch-time normalization techniques, saved searches, and correlationsearches to provide visibility into security-relevant threats andactivity and generate notable events for tracking. The App enables thesecurity practitioner to investigate and explore the data to find new orunknown threats that do not follow signature-based patterns.

Conventional Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systemsthat lack the infrastructure to effectively store and analyze largevolumes of security-related data. Traditional SIEM systems typically usefixed schemas to extract data from pre-defined security-related fieldsat data ingestion time and storing the extracted data in a relationaldatabase. This traditional data extraction process (and associatedreduction in data size) that occurs at data ingestion time inevitablyhampers future incident investigations that may need original data todetermine the root cause of a security issue, or to detect the onset ofan impending security threat.

In contrast, the SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY system stores largevolumes of minimally processed security-related data at ingestion timefor later retrieval and analysis at search time when a live securitythreat is being investigated. To facilitate this data retrieval process,the SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY provides pre-specified schemasfor extracting relevant values from the different types ofsecurity-related event data and enables a user to define such schemas.

The SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY can process many types ofsecurity-related information. In general, this security-relatedinformation can include any information that can be used to identifysecurity threats. For example, the security-related information caninclude network-related information, such as IP addresses, domain names,asset identifiers, network traffic volume, uniform resource locatorstrings, and source addresses. The process of detecting security threatsfor network-related information is further described in U.S. Pat. No.8,826,434, entitled “SECURITY THREAT DETECTION BASED ON INDICATIONS INBIG DATA OF ACCESS TO NEWLY REGISTERED DOMAINS”, issued on 2 Sep. 2014,U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/956,252, entitled “INVESTIGATIVE ANDDYNAMIC DETECTION OF POTENTIAL SECURITY-THREAT INDICATORS FROM EVENTS INBIG DATA”, filed on 31 Jul. 2013, U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/445,018, entitled “GRAPHIC DISPLAY OF SECURITY THREATS BASED ONINDICATIONS OF ACCESS TO NEWLY REGISTERED DOMAINS”, filed on 28 Jul.2014, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/445,023, entitled “SECURITYTHREAT DETECTION OF NEWLY REGISTERED DOMAINS”, filed on 28 Jul. 2014,U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/815,971, entitled “SECURITY THREATDETECTION USING DOMAIN NAME ACCESSES”, filed on 1 Aug. 2015, and U.S.patent application Ser. No. 14/815,972, entitled “SECURITY THREATDETECTION USING DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATIONS”, filed on 1 Aug. 2015, eachof which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for allpurposes. Security-related information can also include malwareinfection data and system configuration information, as well as accesscontrol information, such as login/logout information and access failurenotifications. The security-related information can originate fromvarious sources within a data center, such as hosts, virtual machines,storage devices and sensors. The security-related information can alsooriginate from various sources in a network, such as routers, switches,email servers, proxy servers, gateways, firewalls andintrusion-detection systems.

During operation, the SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY facilitatesdetecting “notable events” that are likely to indicate a securitythreat. These notable events can be detected in a number of ways: (1) auser can notice a correlation in the data and can manually identify acorresponding group of one or more events as “notable;” or (2) a usercan define a “correlation search” specifying criteria for a notableevent, and every time one or more events satisfy the criteria, theapplication can indicate that the one or more events are notable. A usercan alternatively select a pre-defined correlation search provided bythe application. Note that correlation searches can be run continuouslyor at regular intervals (e.g., every hour) to search for notable events.Upon detection, notable events can be stored in a dedicated “notableevents index,” which can be subsequently accessed to generate variousvisualizations containing security-related information. Also, alerts canbe generated to notify system operators when important notable eventsare discovered.

The SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY provides various visualizationsto aid in discovering security threats, such as a “key indicators view”that enables a user to view security metrics, such as counts ofdifferent types of notable events. For example, FIG. 9A illustrates anexample key indicators view 900 that comprises a dashboard, which candisplay a value 901, for various security-related metrics, such asmalware infections 902. It can also display a change in a metric value903, which indicates that the number of malware infections increased by63 during the preceding interval. Key indicators view 900 additionallydisplays a histogram panel 904 that displays a histogram of notableevents organized by urgency values, and a histogram of notable eventsorganized by time intervals. This key indicators view is described infurther detail in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/956,338,entitled “KEY INDICATORS VIEW”, filed on 31 Jul. 2013, and which ishereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes.

These visualizations can also include an “incident review dashboard”that enables a user to view and act on “notable events.” These notableevents can include: (1) a single event of high importance, such as anyactivity from a known web attacker; or (2) multiple events thatcollectively warrant review, such as a large number of authenticationfailures on a host followed by a successful authentication. For example,FIG. 9B illustrates an example incident review dashboard 910 thatincludes a set of incident attribute fields 911 that, for example,enables a user to specify a time range field 912 for the displayedevents. It also includes a timeline 913 that graphically illustrates thenumber of incidents that occurred in time intervals over the selectedtime range. It additionally displays an events list 914 that enables auser to view a list of all of the notable events that match the criteriain the incident attributes fields 911. To facilitate identifyingpatterns among the notable events, each notable event can be associatedwith an urgency value (e.g., low, medium, high, critical), which isindicated in the incident review dashboard. The urgency value for adetected event can be determined based on the severity of the event andthe priority of the system component associated with the event.

2.12. Data Center Monitoring

As mentioned above, the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE platform provides variousfeatures that simplify the developer's task to create variousapplications. One such application is SPLUNK® APP FOR VMWARE® thatprovides operational visibility into granular performance metrics, logs,tasks and events, and topology from hosts, virtual machines and virtualcenters. It empowers administrators with an accurate real-time pictureof the health of the environment, proactively identifying performanceand capacity bottlenecks.

Conventional data-center-monitoring systems lack the infrastructure toeffectively store and analyze large volumes of machine-generated data,such as performance information and log data obtained from the datacenter. In conventional data-center-monitoring systems,machine-generated data is typically pre-processed prior to being stored,for example, by extracting pre-specified data items and storing them ina database to facilitate subsequent retrieval and analysis at searchtime. However, the rest of the data is not saved and discarded duringpre-processing.

In contrast, the SPLUNK® APP FOR VMWARE® stores large volumes ofminimally processed machine data, such as performance information andlog data, at ingestion time for later retrieval and analysis at searchtime when a live performance issue is being investigated. In addition todata obtained from various log files, this performance-relatedinformation can include values for performance metrics obtained throughan application programming interface (API) provided as part of thevSphere Hypervisor™ system distributed by VMware, Inc. of Palo Alto,Calif. For example, these performance metrics can include: (1)CPU-related performance metrics; (2) disk-related performance metrics;(3) memory-related performance metrics; (4) network-related performancemetrics; (5) energy-usage statistics; (6) data-traffic-relatedperformance metrics; (7) overall system availability performancemetrics; (8) cluster-related performance metrics; and (9) virtualmachine performance statistics. Such performance metrics are describedin U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/167,316, entitled “CORRELATIONFOR USER-SELECTED TIME RANGES OF VALUES FOR PERFORMANCE METRICS OFCOMPONENTS IN AN INFORMATION-TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT WITH LOG DATA FROMTHAT INFORMATION-TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT”, filed on 29 Jan. 2014, andwhich is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for allpurposes.

To facilitate retrieving information of interest from performance dataand log files, the SPLUNK® APP FOR VMWARE® provides pre-specifiedschemas for extracting relevant values from different types ofperformance-related event data, and also enables a user to define suchschemas.

The SPLUNK® APP FOR VMWARE® additionally provides various visualizationsto facilitate detecting and diagnosing the root cause of performanceproblems. For example, one such visualization is a “proactive monitoringtree” that enables a user to easily view and understand relationshipsamong various factors that affect the performance of a hierarchicallystructured computing system. This proactive monitoring tree enables auser to easily navigate the hierarchy by selectively expanding nodesrepresenting various entities (e.g., virtual centers or computingclusters) to view performance information for lower-level nodesassociated with lower-level entities (e.g., virtual machines or hostsystems). Example node-expansion operations are illustrated in FIG. 9C,wherein nodes 933 and 934 are selectively expanded. Note that nodes931-939 can be displayed using different patterns or colors to representdifferent performance states, such as a critical state, a warning state,a normal state or an unknown/offline state. The ease of navigationprovided by selective expansion in combination with the associatedperformance-state information enables a user to quickly diagnose theroot cause of a performance problem. The proactive monitoring tree isdescribed in further detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/253,490, entitled “PROACTIVE MONITORING TREE WITH SEVERITY STATESORTING”, filed on 15 Apr. 2014, and U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/812,948, also entitled “PROACTIVE MONITORING TREE WITH SEVERITY STATESORTING”, filed on 29 Jul. 2015, each of which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety for all purposes.

The SPLUNK® APP FOR VMWARE® also provides a user interface that enablesa user to select a specific time range and then view heterogeneous datacomprising events, log data, and associated performance metrics for theselected time range. For example, the screen illustrated in FIG. 9Ddisplays a listing of recent “tasks and events” and a listing of recent“log entries” for a selected time range above a performance-metric graphfor “average CPU core utilization” for the selected time range. Notethat a user is able to operate pull-down menus 942 to selectivelydisplay different performance metric graphs for the selected time range.This enables the user to correlate trends in the performance-metricgraph with corresponding event and log data to quickly determine theroot cause of a performance problem. This user interface is described inmore detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/167,316, entitled“CORRELATION FOR USER-SELECTED TIME RANGES OF VALUES FOR PERFORMANCEMETRICS OF COMPONENTS IN AN INFORMATION-TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT WITH LOGDATA FROM THAT INFORMATION-TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT”, filed on 29 Jan.2014, and which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety forall purposes.

2.13. Cloud-Based System Overview

The example data intake and query system 108 described in reference toFIG. 2 comprises several system components, including one or moreforwarders, indexers, and search heads. In some environments, a user ofa data intake and query system 108 may install and configure, oncomputing devices owned and operated by the user, one or more softwareapplications that implement some or all of these system components. Forexample, a user may install a software application on server computersowned by the user and configure each server to operate as one or more ofa forwarder, an indexer, a search head, etc. This arrangement generallymay be referred to as an “on-premises” solution. That is, the system 108is installed and operates on computing devices directly controlled bythe user of the system. Some users may prefer an on-premises solutionbecause it may provide a greater level of control over the configurationof certain aspects of the system (e.g., security, privacy, standards,controls, etc.). However, other users may instead prefer an arrangementin which the user is not directly responsible for providing and managingthe computing devices upon which various components of system 108operate.

In one embodiment, to provide an alternative to an entirely on-premisesenvironment for system 108, one or more of the components of a dataintake and query system instead may be provided as a cloud-basedservice. In this context, a cloud-based service refers to a servicehosted by one more computing resources that are accessible to end usersover a network, for example, by using a web browser or other applicationon a client device to interface with the remote computing resources. Forexample, a service provider may provide a cloud-based data intake andquery system by managing computing resources configured to implementvarious aspects of the system (e.g., forwarders, indexers, search heads,etc.) and by providing access to the system to end users via a network.Typically, a user may pay a subscription or other fee to use such aservice. Each subscribing user of the cloud-based service may beprovided with an account that enables the user to configure a customizedcloud-based system based on the user's preferences.

FIG. 10 illustrates a block diagram of an example cloud-based dataintake and query system. Similar to the system of FIG. 2, the networkedcomputer system 1000 includes input data sources 202 and forwarders 204.These input data sources and forwarders may be in a subscriber's privatecomputing environment. Alternatively, they might be directly managed bythe service provider as part of the cloud service. In the example system1000, one or more forwarders 204 and client devices 1002 are coupled toa cloud-based data intake and query system 1006 via one or more networks1004. Network 1004 broadly represents one or more LANs, WANs, cellularnetworks, intranetworks, internetworks, etc., using any of wired,wireless, terrestrial microwave, satellite links, etc., and may includethe public Internet, and is used by client devices 1002 and forwarders204 to access the system 1006. Similar to the system of 108, each of theforwarders 204 may be configured to receive data from an input sourceand to forward the data to other components of the system 1006 forfurther processing.

In an embodiment, a cloud-based data intake and query system 1006 maycomprise a plurality of system instances 1008. In general, each systeminstance 1008 may include one or more computing resources managed by aprovider of the cloud-based system 1006 made available to a particularsubscriber. The computing resources comprising a system instance 1008may, for example, include one or more servers or other devicesconfigured to implement one or more forwarders, indexers, search heads,and other components of a data intake and query system, similar tosystem 108. As indicated above, a subscriber may use a web browser orother application of a client device 1002 to access a web portal orother interface that enables the subscriber to configure an instance1008.

Providing a data intake and query system as described in reference tosystem 108 as a cloud-based service presents a number of challenges.Each of the components of a system 108 (e.g., forwarders, indexers andsearch heads) may at times refer to various configuration files storedlocally at each component. These configuration files typically mayinvolve some level of user configuration to accommodate particular typesof data a user desires to analyze and to account for other userpreferences. However, in a cloud-based service context, users typicallymay not have direct access to the underlying computing resourcesimplementing the various system components (e.g., the computingresources comprising each system instance 1008) and may desire to makesuch configurations indirectly, for example, using one or more web-basedinterfaces. Thus, the techniques and systems described herein forproviding user interfaces that enable a user to configure source typedefinitions are applicable to both on-premises and cloud-based servicecontexts, or some combination thereof (e.g., a hybrid system where bothan on-premises environment such as SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE and a cloud-basedenvironment such as SPLUNK CLOUD™ are centrally visible).

2.14. Searching Externally Archived Data

FIG. 11 shows a block diagram of an example of a data intake and querysystem 108 that provides transparent search facilities for data systemsthat are external to the data intake and query system. Such facilitiesare available in the HUNK® system provided by Splunk Inc. of SanFrancisco, Calif. HUNK® represents an analytics platform that enablesbusiness and IT teams to rapidly explore, analyze, and visualize data inHadoop and NoSQL data stores.

The search head 210 of the data intake and query system receives searchrequests from one or more client devices 1104 over network connections1120. As discussed above, the data intake and query system 108 mayreside in an enterprise location, in the cloud, etc. FIG. 11 illustratesthat multiple client devices 1104 a, 1104 b, . . . , 1104 n maycommunicate with the data intake and query system 108. The clientdevices 1104 may communicate with the data intake and query system usinga variety of connections. For example, one client device in FIG. 11 isillustrated as communicating over an Internet (Web) protocol, anotherclient device is illustrated as communicating via a command lineinterface, and another client device is illustrated as communicating viaa system developer kit (SDK).

The search head 210 analyzes the received search request to identifyrequest parameters. If a search request received from one of the clientdevices 1104 references an index maintained by the data intake and querysystem, then the search head 210 connects to one or more indexers 206 ofthe data intake and query system for the index referenced in the requestparameters. That is, if the request parameters of the search requestreference an index, then the search head accesses the data in the indexvia the indexer. The data intake and query system 108 may include one ormore indexers 206, depending on system access resources andrequirements. As described further below, the indexers 206 retrieve datafrom their respective local data stores 208 as specified in the searchrequest. The indexers and their respective data stores can comprise oneor more storage devices and typically reside on the same system, thoughthey may be connected via a local network connection.

If the request parameters of the received search request reference anexternal data collection, which is not accessible to the indexers 206 orunder the management of the data intake and query system, then thesearch head 210 can access the external data collection through anExternal Result Provider (ERP) process 1110. An external data collectionmay be referred to as a “virtual index” (plural, “virtual indices”). AnERP process provides an interface through which the search head 210 mayaccess virtual indices.

Thus, a search reference to an index of the system relates to a locallystored and managed data collection. In contrast, a search reference to avirtual index relates to an externally stored and managed datacollection, which the search head may access through one or more ERPprocesses 1110, 1112. FIG. 11 shows two ERP processes 1110, 1112 thatconnect to respective remote (external) virtual indices, which areindicated as a Hadoop or another system 1114 (e.g., Amazon S3, AmazonEMR, other Hadoop Compatible File Systems (HCFS), etc.) and a relationaldatabase management system (RDBMS) 1116. Other virtual indices mayinclude other file organizations and protocols, such as Structured QueryLanguage (SQL) and the like. The ellipses between the ERP processes1110, 1112 indicate optional additional ERP processes of the data intakeand query system 108. An ERP process may be a computer process that isinitiated or spawned by the search head 210 and is executed by thesearch data intake and query system 108. Alternatively or additionally,an ERP process may be a process spawned by the search head 210 on thesame or different host system as the search head 210 resides.

The search head 210 may spawn a single ERP process in response tomultiple virtual indices referenced in a search request, or the searchhead may spawn different ERP processes for different virtual indices.Generally, virtual indices that share common data configurations orprotocols may share ERP processes. For example, all search queryreferences to a Hadoop file system may be processed by the same ERPprocess, if the ERP process is suitably configured. Likewise, all searchquery references to an SQL database may be processed by the same ERPprocess. In addition, the search head may provide a common ERP processfor common external data source types (e.g., a common vendor may utilizea common ERP process, even if the vendor includes different data storagesystem types, such as Hadoop and SQL). Common indexing schemes also maybe handled by common ERP processes, such as flat text files or Weblogfiles.

The search head 210 determines the number of ERP processes to beinitiated via the use of configuration parameters that are included in asearch request message. Generally, there is a one-to-many relationshipbetween an external results provider “family” and ERP processes. Thereis also a one-to-many relationship between an ERP process andcorresponding virtual indices that are referred to in a search request.For example, using RDBMS, assume two independent instances of such asystem by one vendor, such as one RDBMS for production and another RDBMSused for development. In such a situation, it is likely preferable (butoptional) to use two ERP processes to maintain the independent operationas between production and development data. Both of the ERPs, however,will belong to the same family, because the two RDBMS system types arefrom the same vendor.

The ERP processes 1110, 1112 receive a search request from the searchhead 210. The search head may optimize the received search request forexecution at the respective external virtual index. Alternatively, theERP process may receive a search request as a result of analysisperformed by the search head or by a different system process. The ERPprocesses 1110, 1112 can communicate with the search head 210 viaconventional input/output routines (e.g., standard in/standard out,etc.). In this way, the ERP process receives the search request from aclient device such that the search request may be efficiently executedat the corresponding external virtual index.

The ERP processes 1110, 1112 may be implemented as a process of the dataintake and query system. Each ERP process may be provided by the dataintake and query system, or may be provided by process or applicationproviders who are independent of the data intake and query system. Eachrespective ERP process may include an interface application installed ata computer of the external result provider that ensures propercommunication between the search support system and the external resultprovider. The ERP processes 1110, 1112 generate appropriate searchrequests in the protocol and syntax of the respective virtual indices1114, 1116, each of which corresponds to the search request received bythe search head 210. Upon receiving search results from theircorresponding virtual indices, the respective ERP process passes theresult to the search head 210, which may return or display the resultsor a processed set of results based on the returned results to therespective client device.

Client devices 1104 may communicate with the data intake and querysystem 108 through a network interface 1120, e.g., one or more LANs,WANs, cellular networks, intranetworks, and/or internetworks using anyof wired, wireless, terrestrial microwave, satellite links, etc., andmay include the public Internet.

The analytics platform utilizing the External Result Provider processdescribed in more detail in U.S. Pat. No. 8,738,629, entitled “EXTERNALRESULT PROVIDED PROCESS FOR RETRIEVING DATA STORED USING A DIFFERENTCONFIGURATION OR PROTOCOL”, issued on 27 May 2014, U.S. Pat. No.8,738,587, entitled “PROCESSING A SYSTEM SEARCH REQUEST BY RETRIEVINGRESULTS FROM BOTH A NATIVE INDEX AND A VIRTUAL INDEX”, issued on 25 Jul.2013, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/266,832, entitled “PROCESSINGA SYSTEM SEARCH REQUEST ACROSS DISPARATE DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS”, filedon 1 May 2014, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/449,144, entitled“PROCESSING A SYSTEM SEARCH REQUEST INCLUDING EXTERNAL DATA SOURCES”,filed on 31 Jul. 2014, each of which is hereby incorporated by referencein its entirety for all purposes.

2.14.1. ERP Process Features

The ERP processes described above may include two operation modes: astreaming mode and a reporting mode. The ERP processes can operate instreaming mode only, in reporting mode only, or in both modessimultaneously. Operating in both modes simultaneously is referred to asmixed mode operation. In a mixed mode operation, the ERP at some pointcan stop providing the search head with streaming results and onlyprovide reporting results thereafter, or the search head at some pointmay start ignoring streaming results it has been using and only usereporting results thereafter.

The streaming mode returns search results in real time, with minimalprocessing, in response to the search request. The reporting modeprovides results of a search request with processing of the searchresults prior to providing them to the requesting search head, which inturn provides results to the requesting client device. ERP operationwith such multiple modes provides greater performance flexibility withregard to report time, search latency, and resource utilization.

In a mixed mode operation, both streaming mode and reporting mode areoperating simultaneously. The streaming mode results (e.g., the raw dataobtained from the external data source) are provided to the search head,which can then process the results data (e.g., break the raw data intoevents, timestamp it, filter it, etc.) and integrate the results datawith the results data from other external data sources, and/or from datastores of the search head. The search head performs such processing andcan immediately start returning interim (streaming mode) results to theuser at the requesting client device; simultaneously, the search head iswaiting for the ERP process to process the data it is retrieving fromthe external data source as a result of the concurrently executingreporting mode.

In some instances, the ERP process initially operates in a mixed mode,such that the streaming mode operates to enable the ERP quickly toreturn interim results (e.g., some of the raw or unprocessed datanecessary to respond to a search request) to the search head, enablingthe search head to process the interim results and begin providing tothe client or search requester interim results that are responsive tothe query. Meanwhile, in this mixed mode, the ERP also operatesconcurrently in reporting mode, processing portions of raw data in amanner responsive to the search query. Upon determining that it hasresults from the reporting mode available to return to the search head,the ERP may halt processing in the mixed mode at that time (or somelater time) by stopping the return of data in streaming mode to thesearch head and switching to reporting mode only. The ERP at this pointstarts sending interim results in reporting mode to the search head,which in turn may then present this processed data responsive to thesearch request to the client or search requester. Typically the searchhead switches from using results from the ERP's streaming mode ofoperation to results from the ERP's reporting mode of operation when thehigher bandwidth results from the reporting mode outstrip the amount ofdata processed by the search head in the]streaming mode of ERPoperation.

A reporting mode may have a higher bandwidth because the ERP does nothave to spend time transferring data to the search head for processingall the raw data. In addition, the ERP may optionally direct anotherprocessor to do the processing.

The streaming mode of operation does not need to be stopped to gain thehigher bandwidth benefits of a reporting mode; the search head couldsimply stop using the streaming mode results—and start using thereporting mode results—when the bandwidth of the reporting mode hascaught up with or exceeded the amount of bandwidth provided by thestreaming mode. Thus, a variety of triggers and ways to accomplish asearch head's switch from using streaming mode results to usingreporting mode results may be appreciated by one skilled in the art.

The reporting mode can involve the ERP process (or an external system)performing event breaking, time stamping, filtering of events to matchthe search query request, and calculating statistics on the results. Theuser can request particular types of data, such as if the search queryitself involves types of events, or the search request may ask forstatistics on data, such as on events that meet the search request. Ineither case, the search head understands the query language used in thereceived query request, which may be a proprietary language. Oneexemplary query language is Splunk Processing Language (SPL) developedby the assignee of the application, Splunk Inc. The search headtypically understands how to use that language to obtain data from theindexers, which store data in a format used by the SPLUNK® Enterprisesystem.

The ERP processes support the search head, as the search head is notordinarily configured to understand the format in which data is storedin external data sources such as Hadoop or SQL data systems. Rather, theERP process performs that translation from the query submitted in thesearch support system's native format (e.g., SPL if SPLUNK® ENTERPRISEis used as the search support system) to a search query request formatthat will be accepted by the corresponding external data system. Theexternal data system typically stores data in a different format fromthat of the search support system's native index format, and it utilizesa different query language (e.g., SQL or MapReduce, rather than SPL orthe like).

As noted, the ERP process can operate in the streaming mode alone. Afterthe ERP process has performed the translation of the query request andreceived raw results from the streaming mode, the search head canintegrate the returned data with any data obtained from local datasources (e.g., native to the search support system), other external datasources, and other ERP processes (if such operations were required tosatisfy the terms of the search query). An advantage of mixed modeoperation is that, in addition to streaming mode, the ERP process isalso executing concurrently in reporting mode. Thus, the ERP process(rather than the search head) is processing query results (e.g.,performing event breaking, timestamping, filtering, possibly calculatingstatistics if required to be responsive to the search query request,etc.). It should be apparent to those skilled in the art that additionaltime is needed for the ERP process to perform the processing in such aconfiguration. Therefore, the streaming mode will allow the search headto start returning interim results to the user at the client devicebefore the ERP process can complete sufficient processing to startreturning any search results. The switchover between streaming andreporting mode happens when the ERP process determines that theswitchover is appropriate, such as when the ERP process determines itcan begin returning meaningful results from its reporting mode.

The operation described above illustrates the source of operationallatency: streaming mode has low latency (immediate results) and usuallyhas relatively low bandwidth (fewer results can be returned per unit oftime). In contrast, the concurrently running reporting mode hasrelatively high latency (it has to perform a lot more processing beforereturning any results) and usually has relatively high bandwidth (moreresults can be processed per unit of time). For example, when the ERPprocess does begin returning report results, it returns more processedresults than in the streaming mode, because, e.g., statistics only needto be calculated to be responsive to the search request. That is, theERP process doesn't have to take time to first return raw data to thesearch head. As noted, the ERP process could be configured to operate instreaming mode alone and return just the raw data for the search head toprocess in a way that is responsive to the search request.Alternatively, the ERP process can be configured to operate in thereporting mode only. Also, the ERP process can be configured to operatein streaming mode and reporting mode concurrently, as described, withthe ERP process stopping the transmission of streaming results to thesearch head when the concurrently running reporting mode has caught upand started providing results. The reporting mode does not require theprocessing of all raw data that is responsive to the search queryrequest before the ERP process starts returning results; rather, thereporting mode usually performs processing of chunks of events andreturns the processing results to the search head for each chunk.

For example, an ERP process can be configured to merely return thecontents of a search result file verbatim, with little or no processingof results. That way, the search head performs all processing (such asparsing byte streams into events, filtering, etc.). The ERP process canbe configured to perform additional intelligence, such as analyzing thesearch request and handling all the computation that a native searchindexer process would otherwise perform. In this way, the configured ERPprocess provides greater flexibility in features while operatingaccording to desired preferences, such as response latency and resourcerequirements.

2.14. IT Service Monitoring

As previously mentioned, the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE platform providesvarious schemas, dashboards and visualizations that make it easy fordevelopers to create applications to provide additional capabilities.One such application is SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™, which performsmonitoring and alerting operations. It also includes analytics to helpan analyst diagnose the root cause of performance problems based onlarge volumes of data stored by the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system ascorrelated to the various services an IT organization provides (aservice-centric view). This differs significantly from conventional ITmonitoring systems that lack the infrastructure to effectively store andanalyze large volumes of service-related event data. Traditional servicemonitoring systems typically use fixed schemas to extract data frompre-defined fields at data ingestion time, wherein the extracted data istypically stored in a relational database. This data extraction processand associated reduction in data content that occurs at data ingestiontime inevitably hampers future investigations, when all of the originaldata may be needed to determine the root cause of or contributingfactors to a service issue.

In contrast, a SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ system stores largevolumes of minimally-processed service-related data at ingestion timefor later retrieval and analysis at search time, to perform regularmonitoring, or to investigate a service issue. To facilitate this dataretrieval process, SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ enables a user todefine an IT operations infrastructure from the perspective of theservices it provides. In this service-centric approach, a service suchas corporate e-mail may be defined in terms of the entities employed toprovide the service, such as host machines and network devices. Eachentity is defined to include information for identifying all of theevent data that pertains to the entity, whether produced by the entityitself or by another machine, and considering the many various ways theentity may be identified in raw machine data (such as by a URL, an IPaddress, or machine name). The service and entity definitions canorganize event data around a service so that all of the event datapertaining to that service can be easily identified. This capabilityprovides a foundation for the implementation of Key PerformanceIndicators.

One or more Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) are defined for a servicewithin the SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ application. Each KPImeasures an aspect of service performance at a point in time or over aperiod of time (aspect KPI's). Each KPI is defined by a search querythat derives a KPI value from the machine data of events associated withthe entities that provide the service. Information in the entitydefinitions may be used to identify the appropriate events at the time aKPI is defined or whenever a KPI value is being determined. The KPIvalues derived over time may be stored to build a valuable repository ofcurrent and historical performance information for the service, and therepository, itself, may be subject to search query processing. AggregateKPIs may be defined to provide a measure of service performancecalculated from a set of service aspect KPI values; this aggregate mayeven be taken across defined timeframes and/or across multiple services.A particular service may have an aggregate KPI derived fromsubstantially all of the aspect KPI's of the service to indicate anoverall health score for the service.

SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ facilitates the production ofmeaningful aggregate KPI's through a system of KPI thresholds and statevalues. Different KPI definitions may produce values in differentranges, and so the same value may mean something very different from oneKPI definition to another. To address this, SPLUNK® IT SERVICEINTELLIGENCE™ implements a translation of individual KPI values to acommon domain of “state” values. For example, a KPI range of values maybe 1-100, or 50-275, while values in the state domain may be ‘critical,’warning, ‘normal,’ and ‘informational’. Thresholds associated with aparticular KPI definition determine ranges of values for that KPI thatcorrespond to the various state values. In one case, KPI values 95-100may be set to correspond to ‘critical’ in the state domain. KPI valuesfrom disparate KPI's can be processed uniformly once they are translatedinto the common state values using the thresholds. For example, “normal80% of the time” can be applied across various KPI's. To providemeaningful aggregate KPI's, a weighting value can be assigned to eachKPI so that its influence on the calculated aggregate KPI value isincreased or decreased relative to the other KPI's.

One service in an IT environment often impacts, or is impacted by,another service. SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ can reflect thesedependencies. For example, a dependency relationship between a corporatee-mail service and a centralized authentication service can be reflectedby recording an association between their respective servicedefinitions. The recorded associations establish a service dependencytopology that informs the data or selection options presented in a GUI,for example. (The service dependency topology is like a “map” showinghow services are connected based on their dependencies.) The servicetopology may itself be depicted in a GUI and may be interactive to allownavigation among related services.

Entity definitions in SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ can includeinformational fields that can serve as metadata, implied data fields, orattributed data fields for the events identified by other aspects of theentity definition. Entity definitions in SPLUNK® IT SERVICEINTELLIGENCE™ can also be created and updated by an import of tabulardata (as represented in a CSV, another delimited file, or a search queryresult set). The import may be GUI-mediated or processed using importparameters from a GUI-based import definition process. Entitydefinitions in SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ can also be associatedwith a service by means of a service definition rule. Processing therule results in the matching entity definitions being associated withthe service definition. The rule can be processed at creation time, andthereafter on a scheduled or on-demand basis. This allows dynamic,rule-based updates to the service definition.

During operation, SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ can recognizeso-called “notable events” that may indicate a service performanceproblem or other situation of interest. These notable events can berecognized by a “correlation search” specifying trigger criteria for anotable event: every time KPI values satisfy the criteria, theapplication indicates a notable event. A severity level for the notableevent may also be specified. Furthermore, when trigger criteria aresatisfied, the correlation search may additionally or alternativelycause a service ticket to be created in an IT service management (ITSM)system, such as a systems available from ServiceNow, Inc., of SantaClara, Calif.

SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ provides various visualizations builton its service-centric organization of event data and the KPI valuesgenerated and collected. Visualizations can be particularly useful formonitoring or investigating service performance. SPLUNK® IT SERVICEINTELLIGENCE™ provides a service monitoring interface suitable as thehome page for ongoing IT service monitoring. The interface isappropriate for settings such as desktop use or for a wall-mounteddisplay in a network operations center (NOC). The interface mayprominently display a services health section with tiles for theaggregate KPI's indicating overall health for defined services and ageneral KPI section with tiles for KPI's related to individual serviceaspects. These tiles may display KPI information in a variety of ways,such as by being colored and ordered according to factors like the KPIstate value. They also can be interactive and navigate to visualizationsof more detailed KPI information.

SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ provides a service-monitoring dashboardvisualization based on a user-defined template. The template can includeuser-selectable widgets of varying types and styles to display KPIinformation. The content and the appearance of widgets can responddynamically to changing KPI information. The KPI widgets can appear inconjunction with a background image, user drawing objects, or othervisual elements, that depict the IT operations environment, for example.The KPI widgets or other GUI elements can be interactive so as toprovide navigation to visualizations of more detailed KPI information.

SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ provides a visualization showingdetailed time-series information for multiple KPI's in parallel graphlanes. The length of each lane can correspond to a uniform time range,while the width of each lane may be automatically adjusted to fit thedisplayed KPI data. Data within each lane may be displayed in a userselectable style, such as a line, area, or bar chart. During operation auser may select a position in the time range of the graph lanes toactivate lane inspection at that point in time. Lane inspection maydisplay an indicator for the selected time across the graph lanes anddisplay the KPI value associated with that point in time for each of thegraph lanes. The visualization may also provide navigation to aninterface for defining a correlation search, using information from thevisualization to pre-populate the definition.

SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ provides a visualization for incidentreview showing detailed information for notable events. The incidentreview visualization may also show summary information for the notableevents over a time frame, such as an indication of the number of notableevents at each of a number of severity levels. The severity leveldisplay may be presented as a rainbow chart with the warmest colorassociated with the highest severity classification. The incident reviewvisualization may also show summary information for the notable eventsover a time frame, such as the number of notable events occurring withinsegments of the time frame. The incident review visualization maydisplay a list of notable events within the time frame ordered by anynumber of factors, such as time or severity. The selection of aparticular notable event from the list may display detailed informationabout that notable event, including an identification of the correlationsearch that generated the notable event.

SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ provides pre-specified schemas forextracting relevant values from the different types of service-relatedevent data. It also enables a user to define such schemas.

3.0 Overview of Distributed Data Processing

Machine learning models are frequently generated to perform dataanalysis. In this regard, machine learning models can be generated and,thereafter, utilized to analyze data to identify useful information orresults, such as predictions, categorizations, clusters, statistics, orthe like. Machine learning models can enable users, such as analysts, toproduce reliable or accurate decisions or results through learning fromhistorical relationships and trends in data.

Training and utilizing machine learning models, however, can consume animmense amount of resources, such as memory and CPU resources.Oftentimes, the performance of such machine learning operations islimited to the available resources. Further, in many cases, multipleoperations (e.g., additional searches or scheduled searches) are beingperformed using the same resources, thereby further limiting theavailable resources. For example, assume a single server is utilized torun machine learning operations as well as perform other searchoperations. The efficiency of executing multiple operations on theserver is generally limited to the resources available via the server.As the number of operations, the complexity of operations, and/or theamount of data increases, the execution efficiency will decrease.

Accordingly, embodiments described herein are directed to facilitatingdistribution of data to an external computing service in an effort todistribute or offload performance of computations, such as, for example,machine learning operations. For example, in instances that a singleserver is configured to execute various operations, particularoperations, such as machine learning operations, can be performed by anexternal or remote computing service. Distributing data processing to anexternal computing service can reduce processing delays due to resourceslimitations and thereby enable more efficient execution of operations.

To efficiently and effectively facilitate distribution of dataprocessing to an external computing service, embodiments describedherein can generate an execution plan in light of operations associatedwith each command to be performed by an external computing service. Inparticular, upon identifying operations associated with each command ofa query to be performed by an external computing service, the collectiveset of operations can be analyzed to identify a manner in which toefficiently and effectively process the data externally. Based on theanalysis, an execution plan indicating an approach for processing thedata at an external computing service is generated and provided to theexternal computing service. In this way, the external computing serviceperforming the processing has the instructions needed to perform eachoperation associated with the desired commands within the query, orportion thereof. Accordingly, an iterative approach of communicating asequence of commands associated with a query to an external computingservice is not utilized, thereby improving data processing efficiency.Further, the appropriate data needed for performing external processingfor a sequence of commands can be aggregated and communicated to theexternal computing service prior to performing the external dataprocessing to alleviate the need to transfer data back and forth betweena data-processing system and external computing service.

3.1 Overview of a Distributed Data Processing Environment

FIG. 18 illustrates an example distributed data processing environment1800 in accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure.Generally, the distributed data processing environment 1800 refers to anenvironment that provides for, or enables, the management, storage,retrieval, preprocessing, processing, and/or analysis of data performedin a distributed manner. As shown in FIG. 18, the distributed dataprocessing environment includes a search head 1816 used to facilitatedata distribution, for instance, to external computing service 1830. Thesearch head 1816 can identify and prepare data for distribution to theexternal computing service 1830, among other things.

In some embodiments, the environment 1800 can include a data-processingsystem 1802 communicatively coupled to one or more client devices 1804and one or more data sources 1806 via a communications network 1808. Thenetwork 1808 may include an element or system that facilitatescommunication between the entities of the environment 1800. The network1808 may include an electronic communications network, such as theInternet, a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), awireless local area network (WLAN), a cellular communications network,and/or the like. In some embodiments, the network 1808 can include awired or a wireless network. In some embodiments, the network 1808 caninclude a single network or a combination of networks.

The data source 1806 may be a source of incoming source data 1810 beingfed into the data-processing system 1802. A data source 1806 can be orinclude one or more external data sources, such as web servers,application servers, databases, firewalls, routers, operating systems,and software applications that execute on computer systems, mobiledevices, sensors, and/or the like. Data source 1806 may be locatedremote from the data-processing system 1802. For example, a data source1806 may be defined on an agent computer operating remote from thedata-processing system 1802, such as on-site at a customer's location,that transmits source data 1810 to data-processing system 1802 via acommunications network (e.g., network 1808).

Source data 1810 can be a stream or set of data fed to an entity of thedata-processing system 1802, such as a forwarder (not shown) or anindexer 1812. In some embodiments, the source data 1810 can beheterogeneous machine-generated data received from various data sources1806, such as servers, databases, applications, networks, and/or thelike. Source data 1810 may include, for example raw data, such as serverlog files, activity log files, configuration files, messages, networkpacket data, performance measurements, sensor measurements, and/or thelike. For example, source data 1810 may include log data generated by aserver during the normal course of operation (e.g. server log data). Insome embodiments, the source data 1810 may be minimally processed togenerate minimally processed source data. For example, the source data1810 may be received from a data source 1806, such as a server. Thesource data 1810 may then be subjected to a small amount of processingto break the data into events. As discussed, an event generally refersto a portion, or a segment of the data, that is associated with a time.And, the resulting events may be indexed (e.g., stored in a raw datafile associated with an index file). In some embodiments, indexing thesource data 1810 may include additional processing, such as compression,replication, and/or the like.

As can be appreciated, source data 1810 might be structured data orunstructured data. Structured data has a predefined format, whereinspecific data items with specific data formats reside at predefinedlocations in the data. For example, data contained in relationaldatabases and spreadsheets may be structured data sets. In contrast,unstructured data does not have a predefined format. This means thatunstructured data can comprise various data items having different datatypes that can reside at different locations.

The indexer 1812 of the data-processing system 1802 receives the sourcedata 1810, for example, from a forwarder (not shown) or the data source1806, and can apportion the source data 1810 into events. An indexer1812 may be an entity of the data-processing system 1802 that indexesdata, transforming source data 1810 into events and placing the resultsinto a data store 1814, or index. An indexer 1812 may perform otherfunctions, such as data input and search management. In some cases,forwarders (not shown) handle data input, and forward the source data1810 to the indexers 1812 for indexing.

During indexing, and at a high-level, the indexer 1812 can facilitatetaking data from its origin in sources, such as log files and networkfeeds, to its transformation into searchable events that encapsulatevaluable knowledge. The indexer 1812 may acquire a raw data stream(e.g., source data 1810) from its source (e.g., data source 1806), breakit into blocks (e.g., 64K blocks of data), and/or annotate each blockwith metadata keys. After the data has been input, the data can beparsed. This can include, for example, identifying event boundaries,identifying event timestamps (or creating them if they don't exist),masking sensitive event data (such as credit card or social securitynumbers), applying custom metadata to incoming events, and/or the like.Accordingly, the raw data may be data broken into individual events. Theparsed data (also referred to as “events”) may be written to a datastore, such as an index or data store 1814.

The data store 1814 may include a medium for the storage of datathereon. For example, data store 1814 may include non-transitorycomputer-readable medium storing data thereon that is accessible byentities of the environment 1800, such as the corresponding indexer 1812and the search head 1816. As can be appreciated, the data store 1814 maystore the data (e.g., events) in any manner. In some implementations,the data may include one or more indexes including one or more buckets,and the buckets may include an index file and/or raw data file (e.g.,including parsed, time-stamped events). In some embodiments, each datastore is managed by a given indexer that stores data to the data storeand/or performs searches of the data stored on the data store. Althoughcertain embodiments are described with regard to a single data store1814 for purposes of illustration, embodiments may include employingmultiple data stores 1814, such as a plurality of distributed datastores 1814.

As described, events within the data store 1814 may be represented by adata structure that is associated with a certain point in time andincludes a portion of raw machine data (e.g., a portion ofmachine-generated data that has not been manipulated). An event mayinclude, for example, a line of data that includes a time reference(e.g., a timestamp), and one or more other values. In the context ofserver log data, for example, an event may correspond to a log entry fora client request and include the following values: (a) a time value(e.g., including a value for the date and time of the request, such as atimestamp), and (b) a series of other values including, for example, apage value (e.g., including a value representing the page requested), anIP (Internet Protocol) value (e.g., including a value for representingthe client IP address associated with the request), and an HTTP(Hypertext Transfer protocol) code value (e.g., including a valuerepresentative of an HTTP status code), and/or the like. That is, eachevent may be associated with one or more values. Some events may beassociated with default values, such as a host value, a source value, asource type value and/or a time value. A default value may be common tosome of all events of a set of source data.

In some embodiments, an event can be associated with one or morecharacteristics that are not represented by the data initially containedin the raw data, such as characteristics of the host, the source, and/orthe source type associated with the event. In the context of server logdata, for example, if an event corresponds to a log entry received fromServer A, the host and the source of the event may be identified asServer A, and the source type may be determined to be “server.” In someembodiments, values representative of the characteristics may be addedto (or otherwise associated with) the event. In the context of serverlog data, for example, if an event is received from Server A, a hostvalue (e.g., including a value representative of Server A), a sourcevalue (e.g., including a value representative of Server A), and a sourcetype value (e.g., including a value representative of a “server”) may beappended to (or otherwise associated with) the corresponding event.

In some embodiments, events can correspond to data that is generated ona regular basis and/or in response to the occurrence of a givenactivity. In the context of server log data, for example, a server thatlogs activity every second may generate a log entry every second, andthe log entries may be stored as corresponding events of the sourcedata. Similarly, a server that logs data upon the occurrence of an errormay generate a log entry each time an error occurs, and the log entriesmay be stored as corresponding events of the source data.

In accordance with events being stored in the data store 1814, thesearch head 1816 can function to process received queries. Queries canbe received at the search head 1816 in response to queries initiated atclient devices, such as client device 1804. For example, a query can beinitiated by a user of the client device 1804. The client device 1804may be used or otherwise accessed by a user, such as a systemadministrator or a customer. A client device 1804 may include anyvariety of electronic devices. In some embodiments, a client device 1804can include a device capable of communicating information via thenetwork 1808. A client device 1804 may include one or more computerdevices, such as a desktop computer, a server, a laptop computer, atablet computer, a wearable computer device, a personal digitalassistant (PDA), a smart phone, and/or the like. In some embodiments, aclient device 1804 may be a client of the event processing system 1802.In some embodiments, a client device 1804 can include variousinput/output (I/O) interfaces, such as a display (e.g., for displaying agraphical user interface (GUI), an audible output user interface (e.g.,a speaker), an audible input user interface (e.g., a microphone), animage acquisition interface (e.g., a camera), a keyboard, apointer/selection device (e.g., a mouse, a trackball, a touchpad, atouchscreen, a gesture capture or detecting device, or a stylus), and/orthe like. In some embodiments, a client device 1804 can include generalcomputing components and/or embedded systems optimized with specificcomponents for performing specific tasks. In some embodiments, a clientdevice 1804 can include programs/applications that can be used togenerate a request for content, to provide content, to render content,and/or to send and/or receive requests to and/or from other devices viathe network 1808. For example, a client device 1804 may include anInternet browser application that facilitates communication with thedata-processing system 1802 via the network 1808. In some embodiments, aprogram, or application, of a client device 1804 can include programmodules having program instructions that are executable by a computersystem to perform some or all of the functionality described herein withregard to at least client device 1804. In some embodiments, a clientdevice 1804 can include one or more computer systems similar to that ofthe computer system 2400 described below with regard to at least FIG.24.

The query can be initiated at the client device 1804, for example, via asearch graphical user interface (GUI). In some embodiments, thedata-processing system 1802 can provide for the display of a search GUI.Such a search GUI can be displayed on a client device 1804, and canpresent information relating to initiating data analysis, performingdata analysis, viewing results of data analysis, providing data analysisnotifications, and/or the like.

A query can be initiated at a client device by a user at any time. Inthis regard, a user may initiate a query in accordance with performing asearch for information. By way of example only, a query might beinitiated based on a user selection of a machine learning assistant(e.g., presented via a GUI) that guides a user through workflow of amachine learning application. In embodiments, the query is provided inthe form of a search processing language that includes search commandsand corresponding functions, arguments, and/or parameters.

Upon the search head 1816 receiving a search query, the search query canbe processed. In this regard, the search head 1816 can analyze the queryto identify whether to initiate external data processing. Identifyingwhether to initiate external data processing can be performed in anynumber of ways. In some embodiments, the received query may include anexternal processing indicator that provides an indication to initiate ortrigger external data processing. For example, a query may include aparticular term (e.g., “sparkml”), syntax, command, combination thereof,or other external processing indicator to indicate or specify externaldata processing. A query having an external processing indicator may befollowed (or preceded) by a set of commands desired to be performed bythe external computing service. By way of example only, a query mayinclude:

Externalml [sfit PCA field1 field2 field3 | sfit LinearRegressiontarget_field from feature1 feature2 PCA_1 PCA_2 PCA_3]

wherein “Externalml” may be an external processing indicator indicatingthat the subsequent commands listed between brackets [ ] are commandsdesired to be performed at an external computing service.

Additionally or alternatively, the search head 1816 may determine toinitiate external data processing, for example, based on a criteria orthreshold (e.g., data set size, field(s) cardinality, current processingutilization, number of concurrent operations being performed, etc.). Forexample, in cases that a data set exceeds a threshold size (e.g., apredetermined number of events), a determination to utilize an externalcomputing service may be made. As another example, in cases that a fieldor set of fields has exceeds a threshold number of distinct fieldvalues, the search head 1816 may make a determination to utilize anexternal computing service.

In accordance with making a determination (e.g., using an externalprocessing indicator) to distribute data processing to an externalcomputing service, the search head 1816 can facilitate obtainingappropriate data for processing data at the external computing service1830. In particular, the search head 1816 can facilitate identificationof a data set and an external processing execution plan, which can thenbe provided to the external computing service 1830 for performing thedata analysis. In embodiments, an external processing execution planassociated with a sequence of commands in a query and correspondinginput data are identified prior to being communicated to the externalcomputing service for processing. Advantageously, identifying anexternal processing execution plan that encompasses a sequence ofcommands in a query, as well as identifying the corresponding inputdata, reduces the amount of communications required between thedata-processing system 1802 and the external computing service 1820.Accordingly, rather than communicating a first external processingexecution plan associated with a first command and corresponding inputdata to the external computing service, obtaining results from theexternal computing service, and then proceeding to communicate a secondexternal processing execution plan associated with a second command inthe query and corresponding input data to the external computingservice, the appropriate data and commands are provided to the externalcomputing service in advance of the external computing serviceperforming the processing such that the external computing service hasthe appropriate data and instructions needed to perform processing.

In embodiments, to facilitate external data processing, the search head1816 includes a compute unit generation tool 1818, a plan generator1820, and a data distribution tool 1822. Although illustrated asseparate components, the functionality described in association with thecompute unit generation tool 1818, the plan generator 1820, and the datadistribution tool 1822 can be provided via any number of tools,components, or modules. Further, although compute unit generation tool1818, plan generator 1820, and data distribution tool 1822 areillustrated as integrated with search head, as can be appreciated, suchtools may be provided in any number of configurations (e.g., separatefrom the search head in the data-processing system).

The compute unit generation tool 1818 is generally configured togenerate compute units in association with commands. A compute unit is aunit of computation that indicates an operation (atomic operation) thatcan be performed via the external computing service. To this end, acompute unit contains necessary information to execute a command, suchas a machine learning command (e.g., fit and/or apply). In someembodiments, one or more compute units can be determined for a commandwithin a query. To identify one or more commands within the query, thequery can be parsed. The command(s) for which a compute unit(s) isgenerated may be based on, for example, commands within a subquery orsubsearch, or portion of a query. For example, a compute unit(s) may begenerated for each command within a subquery designated by a particularbracket set or other indicator, such as commands following an externalprocessing indicator. In other implementations, a compute unit(s) may begenerated for each command within the query. Upon determining computeunits associated with selected commands within the query, the computeunits can be aggregated as a collection, set or graph of compute unitsfor the query. That is, the set of compute units includes indications ofthe operations to be performed via the external computing service. Acollection, set, or graph of compute units is generally referred toherein as a graph of compute units or a compute unit graph. As describedmore full below, by aggregating the compute units, the set of computeunits can be collectively analyzed to optimize performance of theoperations. Upon determining a compute unit(s) for each command in asub-search (e.g., commands in the query to be performed by an externalcomputing service), the graph of compute units can be communicated tothe plan generator 1820. By providing the compute units related to aparticular query, or subquery, to the plan generator 1820 collectively,the plan generator 1820 can efficiently optimize execution of thecommands in the query and reduce the amount of communication requiredbetween the data-processing system and the external computing service.

A compute unit(s) associated with a command can be determined in anynumber of ways. FIG. 19 illustrates one exemplary implementation forgenerating a compute unit for an identified command (e.g., a machinelearning command, such as fit or apply). As illustrated in FIG. 19, oneprocess includes parsing arguments 1910, handling options 1912,obtaining fields 1914, and using such data to generate a compute unit(s)1916. Assume that a query 1902 is received. Further assume that, uponanalyzing the received query, a set of commands 1904 (e.g., machinelearning commands) to be processed at an external computing service isdetected. For each such command, a compute unit(s) can be determined. Inparticular, at block 1910, the query can be parsed to identify anargument(s) associated with a command. By way of example only, assume amachine learning fit command corresponds with a parameter of k=5. Insuch a case, the parameter k=5 can be parsed into a key-value pair as anargument. At block 1912, options associated with generating computeunits can be handled. By way of example only, assume that an option forcross validation is set for the command “sfit.” In such a case, ratherthan generating one compute unit, a set of compute units that canpotentially be executed in parallel can be generated. Various options toexecute commands may exist, for example, based on a particular argumentspecified. At block 1914, fields, such as required fields, associatedwith a particular command are obtained. In one example, in machinelearning, a set of obtained fields may include all target variables andfeature variables for a machine learning command. A feature variablerefers to variable used to predict a target variable. In some cases, afeature variable might be a generated target variable from a previouscommand.

At block 1916, a compute unit(s) is generated for the command.Generally, a compute unit includes an indication of an operation or setof operations to perform in association with a command. By way ofexample only, assume a command to be performed by the external computingservice is a linear regression command. In such a case, various computeunits associated with a linear regression command can be generated. Forexample, a first compute unit may be removing empty columns, a secondcompute unit may be dropping null values, a third compute unit may beconverting strings to numeric data, and a fourth compute unit may be torun linear regression. Although this example illustrates each of thesesteps as separate compute units, as can be appreciated, any combinationof steps may be aggregated in a single compute unit. In embodiments, aparticular step or set of steps may be determined to be in a computestep based on organizational purposes. That is, in optimizingoperations, a compute unit can include a step that can be used tooptimize an operation. For instance, if two operations exist for acommand and the order of executing such operations can be optimized, theoperations may be separated into different compute units.

In embodiments, a compute unit can be generated using identifiedarguments, options, and fields. By way of example only, options may beused to facilitate generation of the compute unit. For instance, acommand(s) may have a preset rule for generating a compute unit based onan option(s). Further, identified arguments and/or fields can beincluded in the compute unit.

A compute unit(s) 1918 generated in association with a command can beaggregated as a graph of compute units 1920 associated with a query, orsubquery. By way of example only, assume a subquery includes a first fitcommand (e.g., PCA) and a second fit command (e.g., linear regression).Assume that two compute units are generated for the first command, andthree compute units are generated for the second command. The twocompute units generated for the first command and the three computeunits generated for the second command can be aggregated or combinedinto a graph of compute units for the query such that the graph ofcompute units includes five compute units. Upon determining a computeunit(s) for each command in the set of commands 1904 (e.g., commands inthe query to be performed by an external computing service), the graphof compute units 1920 can be communicated to the plan generator 1932.

Returning to FIG. 18, the plan generator 1820 is generally configured togenerate an execution plan in association with a query, or portionthereof. An execution plan generally refers to a plan for executing aquery, or portion thereof, at an external computing service, such asexternal computing service 1830. As can be appreciated, an executionplan may be represented as a graph, in which case compute units canrepresent the nodes of the graph. The plan generator 1820 can parsearguments, within a query, associated with performing external dataprocessing. For example, arguments may include an indication of anamount of CPU to utilize, an amount of memory to utilize for aparticular search, etc. In this way, arguments regarding targetresources to use and amounts of data desired to be returned can beparsed from the query. Such arguments may be included in the query priorto or subsequent to a subquery associated with an external computingservice.

Upon obtaining the graph of compute units, the plan generator 1820 canoptimize the compute units. Optimizing compute units generally refers toperforming optimization of an order, merger, aggregation, etc. ofcompute units such that the query, or portion thereof, is executed moreoptimally at the external computing service. As one example, assume afit PCA machine learning command is included in a subquery along with aspecification of fields F1 and F2, and a fit linear regression machinelearning command is included in the subquery along with a specificationof fields F2 and F3. In order to perform machine learning, string valuesare converted to numeric values. Rather than converting field F2 from astring format to a numerical value two separate times (in associationwith the fit PCA command and the linear regression command), the computeunits can be merged such that field F2 is only converted from a stringformat to a numerical value one time. As another example, assume fivecompute units exist in a graph of compute units. The plan generator 1820can analyze each of the five compute units to optimize the computeunits. Upon identifying two compute units having a same type ofoperation (e.g., converting to double), the plan generator 1820 canidentify whether the compute units are operating on a same field. If so,one of the compute units can be removed from the graph of compute units.If not operating on a same field, the compute units may be merged so theoperation can be performed on the two fields at one time. Further, thecompute units can be reordered, for example, based on the particularoperations being performed. For instance, a compute unit associated witha filter operation may be moved to the beginning of the processing order(e.g., to reduce the amount of data being operated on). Anotheroptimization may include parallel execution. In analyzing the computeunits, if a set of compute units do not depend on each other (e.g., thecompute units take different inputs, and, as such, do not utilize theoutput of previous process as input) and can run in parallel, thecompute units can be optimized to execute in parallel. As can beappreciated, in some embodiments, the plan generator 1820 may provide aninterface such that users can customize generation of execution plans,such as optimization preferences. For instance, a user may prefer tooptimize compute units based on memory consumption or execution time.

Based on the identified optimization, an optimized graph of computeunits is created. Such an optimized graph of compute units can be usedto generate an execution plan. An execution plan generally represents anoptimized graph of compute units. As such, an execution plan may be, insome embodiments, a graph indicating compute units and relationshipsthereof. An execution plan includes a set of metadata and an externalcommand pipeline, such as machine learning pipeline. The externalcommand pipeline may be an ordered list of operation instructions, orfunctions, that can be executed on an external computing service. By wayof example only, assume four compute units exist with the optimizedgraph of compute units. In such a case, the external command pipelinemay be an ordered list of operation instructions. The external commandpipeline may be in the form of a graph or tree structure, in someimplementations. In embodiments, an external command pipeline mayinclude data preprocessing operations and processing (e.g., machinelearning) operations. Advantageously, in embodiments, such an externalcommand pipeline can include each operation to be executed at theexternal computing service in accordance with the query, or subquery.Accordingly, each command in the query, or subquery, to be executedremotely can be efficiently executed at the external computing servicein response to the execution plan without requiring additionalcommunication between the data-processing system and the externalcomputing service. That is, a pipeline of commands can be optimized soan iteration of communication between the data-processing system andexternal computing service is not needed for each command within thequery, or portion thereof.

The set of metadata includes data used for data preparation, asdiscussed in more detail below. To this end, metadata may includerequired fields, target variable, and feature variables, for example.The parsed arguments can be used as parameters of the machine learningalgorithm. For example, for Kmeans, a K values need to be specified todetermine the number of clusters.

Upon the search head 1816 detecting an indication to process dataexternal to the data-processing system 1802, the search head 1816 canalso initiate the data distribution tool 1822. The data distributiontool 1822 can function to facilitate data distribution, for example, toexternal computing service 1830. In some implementations, the datadistribution tool 1822 may be initiated upon determining a graph ofcompute units for a query or subquery. In other implementations, thedata distribution tool 1822 may be initiated concurrently with, or priorto, determining a graph of compute units for a query or subquery. Thedata distribution tool 1822 is generally configured to facilitatedistribution of data to the external computing service 1830.

The data distribution tool 1822 is generally configured to collect andfacilitate distribution of data for performing external data processing.The data distribution tool 1822 can collect data, for example, from thedata store 1814 and/or indexer 1812 based on a query, such as a queryinput by a user at client device 1804. For example, the indexers towhich the query, or portion thereof, was distributed, can search datastores associated with them for events that are responsive to the query.To determine which events are responsive to the query, the indexer cansearch for events that match the criteria specified in the query. Thesecriteria can include matching data sources, keywords or specific valuesfor certain fields. The searching operations may use the late-bindingschema to extract values for specified fields from events at the timethe query is processed. In an embodiment, one or more rules forextracting field values may be specified as part of a source typedefinition. The indexers and/or data stores may then either send therelevant events back to the search head 1816, or use the events todetermine a partial result, and send the partial result back to thesearch head 1816.

The search head 1816 can also perform various operations to make thesearch more efficient. For example, before the search head beginsexecution of a query, the search head can determine a time range for thequery and a set of common keywords that all matching events include. Thesearch head may then use these parameters to query the indexers toobtain a superset of the eventual results. Then, during a filteringstage, the search head can perform field-extraction operations on thesuperset to produce a reduced set of search results. This speeds upqueries that are performed on a periodic basis.

Although generally described herein as performing a search for data uponthe events being created, indexed, and stored, a search can be definedand/or applied before or as events are created, indexed, and/or stored.Further, a search may be automatically triggered. For example, uponinitially establishing a search, a subsequent data search, or portionthereof may be automatically triggered and performed as new data isreceived, upon a lapse of a time duration, or the like.

In embodiments, a data set to collect at the data distribution tool 1822may include a set of events having raw data and a timestamp. In someembodiments, a data set may be a training data set. A data set to accessmay be selected in any number of ways. In one embodiment, a user mayselect or designate a data set for which data processing is to beapplied. As one example, a search query may be input that includes anindication of a training data set for which data processing and/ormachine learning model generation is desired. As another example, atraining data set can be selected from among data sets. In anotherembodiment, a training data set to utilize for data processing and/ormachine learning model training may be automatically selected or adefault training data set. For example, upon a request to predict data(e.g., time series forecasting), an initial training data set can beautomatically identified or selected such that it can be processed andused to generate a machine learning model for use in predicting data. Insome implementations, a data source (e.g., index) may be specified.Further, the data accessed may be data collected within a certain timeframe, such as, data collected within the last 30 days, etc. In someembodiments, a data set to collect may correspond with searches orcommands in the query preceding and/or subsequent to commands to beexternally executed.

In accordance with identifying a data set, the data distribution tool1822 can collect appropriate data for use in performing data processing.In embodiments, the data can be referenced or accessed from the datastore 1814, for example. In cases that a query is used to specify aninitial training data set to use, the query can be parsed to identify adata set and any corresponding parameters or options relating to thedata set. In accordance with parsing the query, the data matching thequery can be accessed or retrieved. In some embodiments, eventprocessing may occur in accordance with accessing an initial data set.In this regard, upon inputting a query indicating a data set, thecorresponding events can be processed or analyzed to extract fieldvalues (e.g., using data extraction rules) at search time.

Upon accessing an initial data set, the data distribution tool 1822 maycollect the data set as input data into an input buffer. In embodiments,the input data can be input into the input buffer as chunks of data. Achunk can include a set of events. An input buffer can be used to set amaximum amount of chunks that can be temporarily stored at the searchhead and/or asynchronously transmitted to the external computingservice. In some embodiments, a buffer size may be configurable throughcommand arguments so that memory consumption and I/O throughput can becontrolled for searches.

Identifying and communicating data for performing external dataprocessing can be performed at a data distribution tool, or search head,in any number of ways. FIG. 19 illustrates one exemplary implementationfor identifying and communicating data (e.g., a data set and executionplan) to an external computing service. Assume that a query 1902 isreceived at a search head. Upon determining that external dataprocessing should be performed in association with the query (e.g., anexternal processing indicator is detected), an external processingcommand 1930 can be initiated to facilitate distribution of data to anexternal computing service, such as external computing service 1950.

Accordingly, an input data set 1948 can be collected in an input buffer.Such an input data set may be generated based on any number of commandsor searches corresponding with the query 1902. For example, commands orsearches in the query not associated with an external processingindicator may be used to generate an input data set. Input data can becollected and/or provided in the form of data chunks. Such data chunkscan be raw data, or a raw file, that includes arbitrary data from a setof data. In this regard, a chunked protocol may be used to split datainto small pieces or chunks for providing to an external computingservice. Chunked data may be in a tabular format, but may not share thesame schema. That is, the schema for chunked data may be arbitrary. Forinstance, the dataflow may be optimized by removing empty columns inchunks to reduce the size of the data. Further, the columns in a datachunk may be in any order as the order of the columns is not guaranteedamong chunks. By way of example only, and with reference to FIG.20A-20D, FIG. 20A illustrates an example of a set of data 2002. Asshown, the full set of data 2002 includes column A 2004, column B 2006,and column C. Such a data set 2002 can be chunked or sliced to providedata chunks to an external computing service. For example, data set 2002can be chunked to provide a data chunk 2010 in FIG. 20B, a data chunk2020 in FIG. 20C, and a data chunk 2030 in FIG. 20D. As shown, theschema for each of the data chunks 2010, 2020, and 2030 is different.

Further, a plan generator 1932 can be utilized to generate an executionplan for the query, or portion thereof. As illustrated in FIG. 19, oneprocess for generating an execution plan includes parsing arguments1934, optimizing compute units 1936, and generating an execution plan1938. To this end, arguments within the query can be parsed at parsingarguments 1934. Optimizing compute units 1936 can analyze a graph ofcompute units 1920 to determine or identify a manner in which tooptimize the graph of compute units, that is, such that the computeunits can result in a more efficient or effective operations (e.g.,reduce resource utilization, increase processing efficiency, etc.). Ascan be appreciated, in embodiments, job planners 1940A, 1940B, and/or1940C can be utilized in determining optimization of compute units. Upondetermining a manner in which to optimize compute units, a set ofoptimized compute units 1942 are generated. The optimized compute units1942 can then be used to generate an execution plan 1944 at block 1938.As described above, an execution plan 1944 can include an externalcommand pipeline 1946A and a set of metadata 1946B. The plan generator1932 can then provide the execution plan 1944 to the external computingservice 1950, which can utilize the execution plan 1944, along with theinput data set 1948 to perform data processing in an efficient manner.

Optimizing compute units and generating an execution plan prior tocommunicating such a plan to an external computing service can beadvantageous. In particular, information that the external computingservice may not have can be used to facilitate compute unit optimizationand/or execution plan generation. By way of example only, assume twofields of data exist. Further assume that utilizing the compute units,or other information, it is detected that the two fields are the same.In such a case, operations might be merged for optimization. Such anoptimization can improve processing that may not otherwise be achievedby an external computing service optimization. For instance, an externalcomputing system may not be able to detect whether the two fields areactually the same and, as such, could not optimize accordingly. As yetanother example, it may be determined that execution can be performed inparallel and, as such, multiple jobs can be initiated, as opposed tojust one job.

Returning to FIG. 18, the external computing service 1830 is generallyconfigured to perform remote data processing, that is, data processingthat is external to the data-processing system 1802. One such exemplaryexternal computing service is Apache Spark, which is an open-sourcecluster-computing framework. Apache Spark generally provides an APIbased on a resilient distributed dataset (RDD) data structure.Generally, the external computing service 1830 can utilize the inputdata set and the execution plan to perform data processing in accordancewith a query, or subquery, initiated by a user. In one implementation,the external computing service 1830 may be initiated to performprocessing in response to receiving an execution plan that specifies howto execute a plan.

In embodiments, the external computing service 1830 may include adistributed data set (DDS) component 1832, a data frame component 1834,a data preparation component 1836, and a processing component 1838.Although illustrated with such components, as can be appreciated, anexternal computing service 1830 may include any number or configurationof components.

Upon initiating the external computing service 1830 (e.g., based onreception of data), the distributed data set component 1832 can begin toobtain input data. In this regard, the distributed data set component1832 may begin pulling data chunks from the data-processing system, forexample, via an input buffer. With brief reference to FIG. 20, anexample data chunks may be data chunks 2010, 2020, and 2030, of FIGS.20B-20D, respectively.

The chunks can be pulled to different partitions, which may contain anynumber of chunks. A partition generally holds or contains part of thedata. As can be appreciated any number of partitions may be utilized.Each partition can reside on the same or different nodes such thatvarious operations can be executed in parallel. For example, eachpartition can correspond with a different physical computer or server(e.g., physically located in different locations).

In embodiments, data chunks can be placed within any partition. As such,a partition may not have consecutive data chunks. By way of exampleonly, assume four data chunks are created from an original data set.Further assume two partitions exist. In such a case, the data chunks canbe provided to the two partitions in any order. For instance, a firstpartition may contain data chunks 1 and 4, while a second partitioncontains data chunks 2 and 3. An arbitrary placement of data chunkswithin partitions may occur, for example, as the amount of data may beunknown until all the data is obtained. As can be appreciated, analgorithm may be implemented to allocate chunks within partitions, suchthat the partitions contain an approximately equal number of datachunks.

In some embodiments, the set of metadata within the execution plan canbe provided to the distributed data set 1832. The distributed data set1832 can analyze the metadata, determine data to obtain, and beginpulling appropriate data chunks. As can be appreciated, in some cases,the desired data may not be included in the input data set. In such acases, a notification may be provided to a user to enable a user toinitiate a search for desired data, or to notify the user thatprocessing cannot be performed. Alternatively, the desired data may beautomatically obtained. In this regard, a query may be automaticallygenerated to obtain the desired data and input such data to the externalcomputing service 1830.

In embodiments, as the chunks can include data in a raw format (e.g.,csv format), the data can be parsed and converted to a format or datastructure. As described herein, the distributed data set component 1832can utilize a columnar data structure. By way of example only, whenusing Spark as an external compute system, the distributed data setcomponent 183 can be implemented as SplunkRDD that uses a columnar datastructure. As the data chunks obtained generally have different schemas,a columnar data format may be used to perform various operations togenerate an acceptable or appropriate format for the external computingservice. In this way, a columnar data structure may be used to storeinput data to efficiently perform various operations and pre-processingsteps, such as column reorder, drop columns, and fill missing columns,etc., which are column-based operations. By way of example, and withbrief reference to FIG. 20, an external computing service may operate byusing data in a format as shown in FIG. 20A. However, as describedabove, data chunks can be provided to the external computing service ina format as shown in FIGS. 20B-20D (e.g., to improve data flow).Accordingly, to facilitate processing by the external computing service,the distributed data set component 832 can convert the data chunks to acolumnar data format or data structure. Such data can then be processedto generate a data set with similar schema (e.g., reorder columns,remove columns, add columns, etc.).

Upon storing data in partitions in a columnar format, the data chunkscan be concatenated. As previously described, such data chunks may havea different order of columns, missing columns, etc. As such,columnar-based operations may be performed to generate a data set with asimilar schema. For instance, columns may be reordered, columns may beremoved, missing columns may be added, or the like. In oneimplementation, for each partition, the data can be preprocessed, forexample, to fill missing columns and place columns in a particularorder. Such preprocessing of data can be performed, for instance, inaccordance with available metadata operations provided within theexecution plan, such as for example, reordering columns, filling missingcolumns, etc. Each partition may perform data preprocessing to obtain asame data schema across partitions in the distributed data set (e.g.,such as RDD). In this regard, upon analyzing data within a partition,data across partitions can be analyzed to ensure a same data schema isused across partitions.

In some cases, performing such columnar operations may occur after allthe data chunks are placed in a partition. As can be appreciated,performing operations following reception of all data can facilitate amore efficient and/or accurate set of operations. For example, assume adata set has columns A, B, and C and 100 rows. Further assume thatcolumn A has 100 rows, but rows 1-99 are empty and row 100 has data. Assuch, in performing column-based operations prior to obtaining data inassociation with row 100, column A might not be detected. However,performing column-based operations following obtaining data inassociation with row 100, column A can be detected and maintained in thecolumnar data format. As such, the number of columns and the columnorder may be unknown until all the data is obtained. Accordingly,metadata associated with the data may be not be determined until all thedata is obtained. Such metadata (e.g., number of columns, column names,column data type, etc.) can be provided to the external computingservice performing operations.

In embodiments, the external computing service may utilize a row-basedAPI (e.g., a RDD implementation used by Spark). In this regard, theexternal computing service may desire to access data from thedistributed data set component in the form of a row(s). In conventionalsystems in which data is stored in a row-based manner in a samelocation, it is generally efficient to retrieve that row. However, asdescribed above, column-based operations are desirable to manipulate thedata as may be needed when data is obtained in arbitrary data chunks(e.g., missing columns, re-ordered columns, etc.). To performcolumn-based operations on row-based data would be inefficient and timeconsuming. As such, and as described above, implementations describedherein store data in a column-based data structure. As such, all thedata that belongs to a same column is saved together such that whenperforming a column-based operation, such as reordering columns, areference to the column can be changed.

Although storing data in a column-based data structure (e.g., to performcolumn-based operations in association with an inconsistent chunkschema), the distributed data set can expose a row-based API to theexternal computing service. In this regard, upon a request for a row,the distributed data set component can access each column and identifyor obtain data for the corresponding row. Such data can then beassembled into a row and provided as a row of data.

The columnar-based data structure can include performancecharacteristics associated with operations, such as column-basedoperations. A performance characteristic may refer to a time durationindicating a length of time it will take to perform a correspondingoperation. Utilizing performance characteristics can support efficientdata operations.

One example of a set of performance characteristics is provided in thebelow table. The first row provides a set of operations that can beperformed, for example, via a column-based data structure. The secondrow provides performance characteristic indicating how long it will taketo perform the corresponding operation. This can enable efficientconversion of chunk data into a desired data format. The value “n”generally refers to a number of data (e.g., number of rows). 0(n) thenrefers to the amount of time to perform operation, which will depend onthe size of the list (e.g., the bigger the set of data, the more timerequired). O(1) refers to a constant time, such that the size of thedata does not matter in relation to the amount of time generallyexpected to perform the corresponding operation.

append prepend append lookup by reorder row head tail row column insertupdate remove lookup index columns O(1) O(1) O(1) O(1) O(1) O(n) O(1)O(n) O(n) O(1) O(1)

Upon the data existing in an appropriate distributed data set (e.g.,RDD) format, the data frame component 1834 can convert the distributeddata set format to a data frame that is used by the external computingservice 1830 to process data. In some implementations, a distributeddata set (e.g., RDD) utilizes a row-based API. In such implementations,to convert a distributed data set to a data frame, the distributed dataset is converted on a row-by-row basis.

The data preparation component 1836 can use the generated data frame inassociation with the execution plan (e.g., metadata set) to prepare datafor subsequent processing, such as machine learning operations. The datapreparation component 1836 may perform any number of operations toprepare the data for subsequent processing. By way of example only, themetadata set may provide an indication to perform various preprocessingoperations such as, for instance, converting data (e.g., converting datafrom one type of data to another), removing null values, or handlingcategorical fields, etc. In this way, the data of the data frame can bepreprocessed based on the execution plan as preparation steps oroperations for subsequent processing (e.g., machine learning dataprocessing).

Upon performing data preparation operations, the enhanced data frame canbe used by the processing component 1838 to perform processingoperations as designated in the execution plan. For instance, theenhanced data frame can be used by the processing component 1838 toperform machine learning operations included in the execution plan, viaa command pipeline. Such a command pipeline may be the external commandpipeline, or portion thereof, provided to the external computing service1830, or a pipeline generated or converted from, for instance, theexternal command pipeline provided to the external computing service1830. In some embodiments, the command pipeline may only includecommands for performing machine learning operations, such as fit andapply (e.g., fit PCA or fit linear regression).

In accordance with processing data at the processing component 1838,processed data can be generated. Such processed data may include a newdata frame with data, a machine learned model, or the like. In thisregard, upon performing the operations in association with the commandpipeline, a new data frame or machine learned model may result or beoutput. For example, a new data frame can have a new field added to theenhanced data frame (e.g., via an “apply” machine learning command).Such data in the new field may be generated based on machine learningcommands executed via the external computing service 1830. As anotherexample, when executing a “fit” machine learning command, a machinelearned model may be generated. As yet another example, when executing a“fit” machine learning command, both a machine learned model and a newdata frame may be generated. In this case, after the machine learnedmodel is generated, the model can be applied to the input data frame andgenerate a new data frame including a column of values predicted fromapplication of the generated model. Although not depicted, in somecases, a machine learning library can be used by the processingcomponent 1838 to generate a model. The output of the processingcomponent 1838, such as a new data frame and/or model, can be providedto the data-processing system 1802. By way of example only, data can beprovided to the search head, for example, via an output buffer of thedata distribution tool 1822. The output buffer can have built-in flowcontrol so that the data can be collected in parallel and not exceedinga preset maximum buffer size for managing memory consumption.

Such data in the output buffer can then be indexed or otherwise storedfor subsequence access and utilization. The output can be provided tothe search head in chunks of data, for example, to an output buffer atthe search head. Advantageously, communicating any machine learnedmodels generated via the external computing service 1830 to thedata-processing system 1802 provides access to such externally generatedmachine learned models that can then operate on data within the datastore 1814.

In embodiments, the search head 1816 can provide any such output data,such as a machined learned model, or data generated therefrom, to aclient device, such as client device 1804, for display to a user.Additionally or alternatively, the search head 1816 can facilitateutilization of such output data for use in performing subsequentcommands or processing. For instance, assume a query originally providedto the search head included a set of one or more commands to beperformed subsequent to training a machine learned model. Upon obtaininga generated machine learned model from the external computing service1830, the search head 1816 can facilitate operation or performance ofthe subsequent commands in the query pipeline.

External data processing can be performed at an external computingservice in any number of ways. Returning to FIG. 19, FIG. 19 illustratesone exemplary implementation for externally processing data via anexternal computing service 1950. Assume that an execution plan 1944 isreceived at the external computing service 1950. Upon receiving theexecution plan, a distributed data set component 1952 can be initiatedto obtain input data, such as input data 1948. Accordingly, an inputdata set 1948 can be obtained at the distributed data set component 1952in any number of partitions 1954A-1954N. The distributed data sets canbe provided to the data frame component 1956 to generate a data frame,which can then be used by the data preparation component 1958 to preparethe data for processing. Upon the data being prepared, the enhanced dataframe can be used by the processing component 1960 to process the data,for example, utilizing a machine learning pipeline of commands. The data1962 (e.g., a new, modified, or updated data frame) output from theprocessing component 1960 can be provided to the data distribution toolon the search head for display, further analysis, or subsequentutilizations.

Embodiments have been generally described above in relation to a singleexternal computing service performing computations, such as machinelearning operations. However, embodiments are not intended to be limitedthereto. In some embodiments, multiple external computing services maybe candidate services for performing computations, for example, externalto a data-processing system (e.g., data-processing system 1802 of FIG.18). Such external computing services may comprise any number or type ofanalytics platforms.

With reference to FIG. 21, FIG. 21 provides an example implementation inwhich a job executor may facilitate management of various computingsystems. In FIG. 21, job executor 2102 includes a job manager 2104, aset of executors 2106, and a set of computing services 2108. The jobmanager 2014 can generally analyze the data, such as an execution plan,and identify a best or more effective platform(s) for executing a givencomputation. For example, if one job is executed more efficiently in afirst computing system, the job manager 2104 can communicate or providethe data, such as the execution plan, to the first executor forexecution in association with the first computing system. As anotherexample, the job manager 2014 may analyze an execution plan (e.g.,compute graph) and determine to split into three compute jobs, forexample, one to be performed via first computing machine, one to beperformed via a second computing machine, and one to be performed via athird computing machine. As such, the job manager 2104 can optimize(e.g., based on calculations to perform, or efficiency thereof) andselect a most efficient analytics platform for performing computations.Although such functionality is described in relation to job manager2104, as can be appreciated, a plan generator, such as plan generator1932 in FIG. 19, may additionally or alternatively perform suchanalysis.

The set of executors 2106 can facilitate performance of such operationswith the corresponding computing services 2106. An example of anexecutor 2106 may be a job executor as implemented in association withFIG. 19. As can be appreciated, in one embodiment, a computing service2108 may function in a manner similar to the external computing service1950 described in FIG. 19. For instance, external computing service 1950of FIG. 19 may be one example of a computing service 2108. Further, acomputing service 2106 may include a component associated with adata-processing system 1802 of FIG. 18.

3.2 Illustrative Distributed Data Processing Operations

FIGS. 22-25 illustrate various methods in accordance with embodiments ofthe present invention. Although the method 2200 of FIG. 22, the method2300 of FIG. 23, the method 2400 of FIG. 24, and the method 2500 of FIG.25 are provided as separate methods, the methods, or aspects thereof,can be combined into a single method or combination of methods. As canbe appreciated, additional or alternative steps may also be included indifferent embodiments.

With initial reference to FIG. 22, FIG. 22 illustrates a method offacilitating distributed data processing. Such a method may beperformed, for example, at a search head, such as search head 1816 ofFIG. 18. Initially, at block 2202, a query is received. At block 2204,an indication of performing external processing in association with atleast a portion of the query (subquery) is identified. For example, anexternal processing indicator, such as a predetermined command, may beidentified within the query. Based on the indication to perform externalprocessing, a compute unit(s) for each command within the subquery isgenerated, as shown at block 2206. The set of compute units generatedfor the commands within the subquery are analyzed at block 2208 togenerate an optimized set of compute units. At block 2210, the optimizedset of compute units are used to generate an execution plan forexecuting a set of operations at an external computing service. Anexecution plan can include a set of metadata and an external commandpipeline (e.g., that indicates a command pipeline for performing machinelearning operations). The execution plan is provided to the externalcomputing service to initiate external data processing at the externalcomputing service.

Turning to FIG. 23, FIG. 23 illustrates a method of generating a set ofcompute units. Such a method may be performed, for example, at a computeunit tool, such as compute unit tool 1818 of FIG. 18. Initially, atblock 2102, a query is obtained. At block 2304, at least a portion ofcommands within the query are parsed and identified. For example,commands to be offloaded to an external computing service may beidentified. For a first command, arguments associated with the commandare parsed, as shown at block 2306. At block 2308, a set of options arehandled. At block 2310, a set of fields, such as required fields (e.g.,associated with target variables and feature variables), are identified.At block 2312, one or more compute units associated with the command aregenerated. Thereafter, at block 2314, a determination is made as towhether any additional identified commands within the query exist forwhich a compute unit(s) has not been generated. If additional commandsexist, the method returns to block 2306-2314 until a determination ismade at block 2314 that a compute unit(s) has been generated for eachidentified command. The compute units are aggregated as a graph ofcompute units and used to generate an execution plan for performingexternal data processing. This is shown at block 2316.

With reference to FIG. 24, FIG. 24 illustrates a method of generating anexecution plan. Such a method may be performed, for example, at a datadistribution tool, such as data distribution tool 1822 of FIG. 18.Initially, at block 2402, a set of compute units associated with aquery, or portion thereof, is obtained. At block 2404, arguments areparsed. At block 2406, the set of compute units are analyzed to identifya manner in which to optimize the compute units. At block 2408, anoptimized set of compute units is generated. Thereafter, the optimizedset of compute units is utilized to generate an execution plan thatindicates operations for performing external data processing inaccordance with the query, or portion thereof. This is indicated atblock 2410.

Turning to FIG. 25, FIG. 25 illustrates a method of performing externalprocessing. Such a method may be performed, for example, at an externalcomputing service, such as external computing service 1830 of FIG. 18.Initially, at block 2502, an execution plan, including a set of metadataand an external command pipeline, for performing operations at anexternal computing service is obtained. At block 2504, input data isobtained. At block 2506, the input data and the metadata are utilized togenerate a distributed data set. In embodiments, the input data isstored in a columnar-based format. At block 2508, the distributed dataset is converted to a data frame. In accordance with the metadata, thedata in the data frame is prepared for subsequent processing, asindicated at block 2510. Subsequently, at block 2512, the enhanced dataframe is used in association with the external command pipeline toperform data processing operations. The resulting data, such as a modelor new data frame, is provided for display or subsequent utilization, asshown at block 2514.

3.3 Illustrative Hardware System

The systems and methods described above may be implemented in a numberof ways. One such implementation includes computer devices havingvarious electronic components. For example, components of the system inFIG. 18 may, individually or collectively, be implemented with deviceshaving one or more Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs)adapted to perform some or all of the applicable functions in hardware.Alternatively, the functions may be performed by one or more otherprocessing units (or cores), on one or more integrated circuits orprocessors in programmed computers. In other embodiments, other types ofintegrated circuits may be used (e.g., Structured/Platform ASICs, FieldProgrammable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), and other Semi-Custom ICs), which maybe programmed in any manner known in the art. The functions of each unitmay also be implemented, in whole or in part, with instructions embodiedin a memory, formatted to be executed by one or more general orapplication-specific computer processors.

An example operating environment in which embodiments of the presentinvention may be implemented is described below in order to provide ageneral context for various aspects of the present invention. Referringto FIG. 26, an illustrative operating environment for implementingembodiments of the present invention is shown and designated generallyas computing device 2600. Computing device 2600 is but one example of asuitable operating environment and is not intended to suggest anylimitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the invention.Neither should the computing device 2600 be interpreted as having anydependency or requirement relating to any one or combination ofcomponents illustrated.

The invention may be described in the general context of computer codeor machine-useable instructions, including computer-executableinstructions such as program modules, being executed by a computer orother machine, such as a personal data assistant or other handhelddevice. Generally, program modules including routines, programs,objects, components, data structures, etc., refer to code that performparticular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Theinvention may be practiced in a variety of system configurations,including handheld devices, consumer electronics, general-purposecomputers, more specialized computing devices, etc. The invention mayalso be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks areperformed by remote-processing devices that are linked through acommunications network.

With reference to FIG. 26, computing device 2600 includes a bus 2610that directly or indirectly couples the following devices: memory 2612,one or more processors 2614, one or more presentation components 2616,input/output (I/O) ports 2618, I/O components 2620, and an illustrativepower supply 2622. Bus 2610 represents what may be one or more busses(such as, for example, an address bus, data bus, or combinationthereof). Although depicted in FIG. 26, for the sake of clarity, asdelineated boxes that depict groups of devices without overlap betweenthese groups of devices, in reality, this delineation is not so clearcut and a device may well fall within multiple ones of these depictedboxes. For example, one may consider a display to be one of the one ormore presentation components 2616 while also being one of the I/Ocomponents 2620. As another example, processors have memory integratedtherewith in the form of cache; however, there is no overlap depictedbetween the one or more processors 2614 and the memory 2612. A person ofskill in the art will readily recognize that such is the nature of theart, and it is reiterated that the diagram of FIG. 26 merely depicts anillustrative computing device that can be used in connection with one ormore embodiments of the present invention. It should also be noticedthat distinction is not made between such categories as “workstation,”“server,” “laptop,” “handheld device,” etc., as all such devices arecontemplated to be within the scope of computing device 2600 of FIG. 26and any other reference to “computing device,” unless the contextclearly indicates otherwise.

Computing device 2600 typically includes a variety of computer-readablemedia. Computer-readable media can be any available media that can beaccessed by computing device 2600 and includes both volatile andnonvolatile media, and removable and non-removable media. By way ofexample, and not limitation, computer-readable media may comprisecomputer storage media and communication media. Computer storage mediaincludes both volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removablemedia implemented in any method or technology for storage of informationsuch as computer-readable instructions, data structures, programmodules, or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is notlimited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology,CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage,magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or othermagnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to storethe desired information and which can be accessed by computing device2600. Computer storage media does not comprise signals per se, such as,for example, a carrier wave. Communication media typically embodiescomputer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules, orother data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or othertransport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. Theterm “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of itscharacteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode informationin the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communicationmedia includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wiredconnection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared, and otherwireless media. Combinations of any of the above should also be includedwithin the scope of computer-readable media.

Memory 2612 includes computer storage media in the form of volatileand/or nonvolatile memory. The memory may be removable, non-removable,or a combination thereof. Typical hardware devices may include, forexample, solid-state memory, hard drives, optical-disc drives, etc.Computing device 2600 includes one or more processors 2614 that readdata from various entities such as memory 2612 or I/O components 2620.Presentation component(s) 2616 present data indications to a user orother device. Illustrative presentation components include a displaydevice, speaker, printing component, vibrating component, etc.

I/O ports 2618 allow computing device 2600 to be logically coupled toother devices including I/O components 2620, some of which may be builtin. Illustrative components include a keyboard, mouse, microphone,joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, printer, wireless device,etc. The I/O components 2620 may provide a natural user interface (NUI)that processes air gestures, voice, or other physiological inputsgenerated by a user. In some instances, inputs may be transmitted to anappropriate network element for further processing. An NUI may implementany combination of speech recognition, stylus recognition, facialrecognition, biometric recognition, gesture recognition both on screenand adjacent to the screen, air gestures, head and eye tracking, andtouch recognition (as described elsewhere herein) associated with adisplay of the computing device 2600. The computing device 2600 may beequipped with depth cameras, such as stereoscopic camera systems,infrared camera systems, RGB camera systems, touchscreen technology, andcombinations of these, for gesture detection and recognition.Additionally, the computing device 2600 may be equipped withaccelerometers or gyroscopes that enable detection of motion.

As can be understood, implementations of the present disclosure providefor various approaches to data processing. The present invention hasbeen described in relation to particular embodiments, which are intendedin all respects to be illustrative rather than restrictive. Alternativeembodiments will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the artto which the present invention pertains without departing from itsscope.

From the foregoing, it will be seen that this invention is one welladapted to attain all the ends and objects set forth above, togetherwith other advantages which are obvious and inherent to the system andmethod. It will be understood that certain features and subcombinationsare of utility and may be employed without reference to other featuresand subcombinations. This is contemplated by and is within the scope ofthe claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method comprising:identifying, at a data-processing system, a set of commands in a queryto process at an external computing service; for each command in the setof commands, identifying at least one compute unit including at leastone operation to perform at the external computing service; analyzingeach of the at least one compute unit associated with each command toidentify an optimized manner in which to execute the set of commands atthe external computing service, the optimized manner being identifiedbased on information accessible via the data-processing system andinaccessible to the external computing service; and providing, to theexternal computing service, an indication of the optimized manner inwhich to execute the set of commands and a corresponding set of data toutilize for executing the set of commands at the external computingservice.
 2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein theexternal computing service is separate from a data-processing systemthat receives the query to search for events in a field-searchable datastore, wherein each event includes a portion of raw machine data thatreflects activity in an information technology environment and that isproduced by a component of that information technology environment;wherein each event is associated with a timestamp extracted from the rawmachine data associated with that event.
 3. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 1, wherein the corresponding set of data comprises a setof events, wherein each event includes a portion of raw machine datathat reflects activity in an information technology environment and thatis produced by a component of that information technology environment,and wherein each event is associated with a timestamp extracted from theraw machine data associated with that event.
 4. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 1 further comprising receiving the query from a clientcomputing device.
 5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, whereinthe set of commands identified in the query correspond with an externalprocessing indicator.
 6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,wherein the set of commands identified in the query correspond with anexternal processing indicator that provides an indication to process theset of commands in the external computing service.
 7. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the set of commandsidentified in the query correspond with an external processing indicatorthat provides an indication to process the set of commands in theexternal computing service, the external processing indicator comprisinga command, a symbol, a syntax, or combination thereof.
 8. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the set of commandsidentified in the query comprise a portion of commands included in thequery.
 9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein for eachcommand in the set of commands, the at least one compute unit furtherincludes an indication of one or more fields to utilize in performingthe at least one operation.
 10. The computer-implemented method of claim1, further comprising identifying one or more required fields forperforming the at least one operation and using the one or more requiredfields to identify the at least one compute unit.
 11. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising aggregatingeach of the at least one compute units associated with each command. 12.The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the optimized mannercomprises an optimization of compute units based on at least one of acompute unit reordering, a merger of multiple compute units, anaggregation of multiple compute units, a removal of a compute unit, aparallel execution of multiple compute units, or a combination thereof.13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the optimizedmanner is identified in accordance with a preference to optimize memoryconsumption.
 14. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein theoptimized manner is identified in accordance with a preference tooptimize execution time.
 15. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,wherein the optimized manner comprises an external command pipelineindicating machine learning commands to perform at the externalcomputing service and a set of metadata indicating operations to performto prepare data for performing the machine learning commands.
 16. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising obtaining theset of data based on the query.
 17. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 1, further comprising obtaining the set of data based on thequery, wherein the set of data comprises chunks of events in an inputbuffer.
 18. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein theexternal computing service utilizes the indication of the optimizedmanner and the corresponding set of data to execute the set of commands.19. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the externalcomputing services: obtains the set of data based on the query, the setof data comprising chunks of data; stores the chunks of data in aplurality of partitions in a columnar format; performs column-basedoperations on the chunks of data to obtain data having a same schema.20. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the externalcomputing service is selected from among a set of candidate externalcomputing services.
 21. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,wherein the external computing service is selected from among a set ofcandidate external computing services based on optimization of theexternal computing service to execute the set of commands compared tothe other external computing services in the set of candidate externalcomputing services.
 22. One or more computer-readable storage mediahaving instructions stored thereon, wherein the instructions, whenexecuted by a computing device, cause the computing device to:identifying, at a data-processing system, a set of commands in a queryto process at an external computing service; for each command in the setof commands, identifying at least one compute unit including at leastone operation to perform at the external computing service; analyzingeach of the at least one compute unit associated with each command toidentify an optimized manner in which to execute the set of commands atthe external computing service, the optimized manner being identifiedbased on information accessible via the data-processing system andinaccessible to the external computing service; and providing, to theexternal computing service, an indication of the optimized manner inwhich to execute the set of commands and a corresponding set of data toutilize for executing the set of commands at the external computingservice.
 23. A computing device comprising: one or more processors; anda memory coupled with the one or more processors, the memory havinginstructions stored thereon, wherein the instructions, when executed bythe one or more processors, cause the computing device to: identifying,at a data-processing system, a set of commands in a query to process atan external computing service; for each command in the set of commands,identifying at least one compute unit including at least one operationto perform at the external computing service; analyzing each of the atleast one compute unit associated with each command to identify anoptimized manner in which to execute the set of commands at the externalcomputing service, the optimized manner being identified based oninformation accessible via the data-processing system and inaccessibleto the external computing service; and providing, to the externalcomputing service, an indication of the optimized manner in which toexecute the set of commands and a corresponding set of data to utilizefor executing the set of commands at the external computing service. 24.The computing device of claim 23, wherein the corresponding set of datacomprises a set of events, wherein each event includes a portion of rawmachine data that reflects activity in an information technologyenvironment and that is produced by a component of that informationtechnology environment, and wherein each event is associated with atimestamp extracted from the raw machine data associated with thatevent.
 25. The computing device of claim 23 further comprising receivingthe query from a client computing device.
 26. The computing device ofclaim 23, wherein the set of commands identified in the query correspondwith an external processing indicator.
 27. The computing device of claim23, wherein the set of commands identified in the query correspond withan external processing indicator that provides an indication to processthe set of commands in the external computing service.
 28. The computingdevice of claim 23, wherein the set of commands identified in the querycorrespond with an external processing indicator that provides anindication to process the set of commands in the external computingservice, the external processing indicator comprising a command, asymbol, a syntax, or combination thereof.
 29. The computing device ofclaim 23, wherein the set of commands identified in the query comprise aportion of commands included in the query.
 30. The computing device ofclaim 23, wherein for each command in the set of commands, the at leastone compute unit further includes an indication of one or more fields toutilize in performing the at least one operation.